Immunocompromised, victims of long covid, relatives of “people at risk” or simply concerned not to transmit the Covid… Many of them still take endless and grueling precautions to avoid being infected. But faced with a society that seems to have forgotten the pandemic three years after the start of the first confinement, many say their loneliness, their fears and above all the feeling of having been abandoned.
“I was told that I had to learn to live with it, because life goes on. But me, my life, it stopped”. It was when her youngest child came home sick from kindergarten that Floriane Vauquoy, 44, contracted Covid-19 in early 2022. This Moselle resident has been suffering, like several hundred thousand French people, for 14 months. a long Covid that has put its existence “in stand by“by forcing her to be extra vigilant in the face of the virus so as not to see her condition worsen.
For her, the syndrome notably takes the form of severe chronic fatigue and intolerance to noise. Each small virus comes to “flame” these symptoms and it takes several weeks each time to recover. So much so that her doctor had to put her on sick leave:
“I tried to go back to work in half-time therapy but after four days, I was totally disoriented, I had to go home”.
So, in the hope of one day resuming a normal life, the Mosellane rigorously applies all health precautions: recurrent hand washing, systematic wearing of masks in closed places or in the middle of a crowd, delivery of all foodstuffs who can be and, above all, great isolation. “My circle of friends has shrunk a lot,” she confides, resigned: “but given the non-life I already have, I don’t want to take any risks.”
“Exhausted from this endless state”
Floriane Vauquoy is not an isolated case. Many continue to fear or suffer from Covid-19: former Covid patients who have retained the after-effects or painful memories of their infection, people with a deficient immune system, relatives of so-called “at risk” patients or even people simply wishing to avoid transmitting the virus to others, developing a long Covid or circulating a Covid conducive to mutating…
This is the case of Natacha, who prefers not to communicate her last name, and who has contracted the Covid three times and is doing everything so that the counter stops there. Her multiple infections have also left her with a long Covid that has exhausted her for three years. At 54, this Parisian says she lives “in slow motion, in parentheses, in the body of an elderly person”.
“I have a sword of Damocles above my head, because a fourth infection would be terrible, still not having recovered from the previous ones,” she confides.
So she also compels herself to limit the risk of exposure as much as possible, having already been vaccinated to try to avoid serious forms. Especially since this “solo mom” whose daughter was “16 when it all started”, has to cover her household expenses alone:
“I am lucky to be working after a year of part-time therapeutic work, so all my energy goes into my professional life, I absolutely want to keep my job”.
Without a way out, she says she is “exhausted from this endless state”.
But the situation is not just a case of long Covid: Solenn, who prefers to be referred to only by her first name, was a teacher in economics and social sciences before she began to suffer from chronic pulmonary embolisms in 2019. health situation which led this 42-year-old Brestoise to isolate herself so as not to contract a Covid which would put her on the ground.
With success so far, but at the cost of great precariousness: “I had to stop (working) because of illness, then my contracts came to an end. When I was a little better, I I wanted to resume part-time, but the health protection measures were falling one after the other… too risky for me”. His attempts to return to employment have since been unsuccessful.
“I had job interviews but if you come to FFP2 the job offer ‘disappears’ by magic”, she quips.
“We have been confined for 3 years”
The virus, Florent, computer developer who helped develop the site “ViteMaDose“, do not fear it for him, but for his companion. Living in Paris and both aged 30 today, they contracted the Covid in the middle of the first wave, in March 2020. He “recovered in a few weeks, but for her, the ordeal has only just begun”. The diagnosis was made: again a long Covid. It lists: “her weakened organism, her also weakened immune system, the unknown in the event of reinfection and the near-death experience of the first infection makes her at risk.”
“It is unthinkable that she could cross paths with the virus again,” he decides.
And this decision changed his life: “I wear the FFP2 mask indoors, I ventilate the spaces as soon as possible. (…) I changed jobs to be able to telecommute more often, among other reasons, although I hardly see my family or my friends anymore in winter, when it is impossible to see each other outside.(…) Overall, we have been confined for 3 years”, he sums up.
Others did not wait for the Covid to seriously affect their health or that of their loved ones to take drastic precautions. This is the case of Anaïs who also did not wish to communicate her surname. At the age of 18, it was not until September 2022 that this student in a literary preparatory class in the Paris region, who does not know any risk factors, began to wear “systematically an FFP2 mask in closed places or places with high density” and to ventilate when possible.
It has also invested in a CO2 sensor to monitor the level of this gas in the air, “correlated in theory to that exhaled by people, and to the possible presence of viruses in the air of the room”.
The trigger: remonstrances from a masked teacher in the face of “a whole (a) sick class, without a mask, and which was justified by the myth of the ‘cold snap'”. She then began to read studies and data on the pandemic. “By understanding the Covid a little better, (…) I first wanted to avoid transmitting it at all costs and no longer risk the lives of people at high risk, then I understood that I was me. -even at risk of infections because of long COVID,” she explains.
“I too want us to continue to live”
Whether they have chosen to defend themselves against the Covid or whether they have been forced to do so to preserve their health or that of a loved one, everyone sees that there are far fewer of them than in the past. And in the reactions of those who have “forgotten” the pandemic, there is at best surprise, at worst contempt.
The son of Solenn, mentioned earlier in this article, is only six years old, but is already suffering remarks from these school friends because he wears the mask in order to avoid bringing the virus back to his mother at risk. . “What he finds difficult to bear are the incessant questions from others, seeing the peremptory statements ‘the Covid is over, the mask is not good, it makes you sick’ or mockery”, laments his mother. .
“As much before we stared at those who did not wear masks, now we stare at those who wear one”, summarizes Floriane Vauquoy, whose testimony constituted the beginning of this article.
“So I look down, I feel like a curious beast and I’m a little ashamed when I go out now. The hospital is the only place where I feel almost normal, because a lot of people still wear the mask”, shares the forty-year-old, who knows however that she will never skimp on the precautions for all that.
But for shame, some substitute anger: “I refuse to let selfish people and cons have such a strong possibility of killing me”, Najat, 38, resident of Nanterre and immunocompromised because of treatment. “I too want us to continue to live but not without having a maximum risk reduction”.
The mask, “we shot it for years”
A testimony of exclusion to which is often added that of the abandonment by the public authorities, in particular on the question of health restrictions and in particular the mask, without investing in palliatives such as air purifiers, yet promised by the president- candidate Emmanuel Macron. For epidemiologist Dominique Costagliola, “what is really damaging is that we sold the wearing of the mask as a restriction and not as a tool that can be effective. We shot it for years and years .
She believes that this speech resulted in a reaction of relief when all health sanctions were lifted, to the detriment of those who still needed protection: “It’s as if all the people who died, we erased them. The disabled, they are made invisible. The fact that many people have lost work skills, are no longer able to hold a job in the same way, this is not taken into account”, deplores- she.
And to outline a way out for people at risk, who keep the after-effects of a first infection or who simply seek to protect themselves from it: “It is only in public health measures that these people could regain a social life, coming out of long-term confinement”.
