The first estimates of a national survey published on Friday, October 9th revealed that 4.5% of the French population had developed antibodies against the COVID-19 during the month of May.

A vast study

The results of the survey, known as EpiCov, drawn up by Inserm (National Institute for Health and Medical Research) and Dress (Directorate for Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics), in collaboration with the French Public Health Agency and INSEE (National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies) were made public on Friday, October 9th. A total of 370,000 people took part in this vast study in France. They then extrapolated the results to the entire French population.

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A national seroprevalence of COVID-19

The study revealed that nearly 4.5% of the population of the French metropolis, i.e. nearly 3 million people, had a positive serology to the coronavirus last May. “This national seroprevalence, i.e. the proportion of people who have developed antibodies against the virus, is close to that observed in European countries for which data of the same type is available,” wrote the authors of the study on the comments forwarded by the newspaper Le Figaro. Paris (9.0%), Paris suburbs (9.5%) and Haut-Rhin (10.8%), are concerned by the highest proportion. On the other hand, it is lowest in Bourgogne-France Comté (1.5%), Normandy (1.9%), Occitanie (1.9%) and New Aquitaine (2%).

Despite these estimates, the threshold for achieving herd immunity is still far from the commonly accepted 70%. Indeed, these seroprevalence surveys do not consider another immune defence mechanism, cellular immunity, which would play an important role against COVID-19.