"Conquering COVID-19": watch the lecture by Arnaud Fontanet at the Grandes Conférences Catholiques

On March 29, the physician and epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet, Head of the Epidemiology of Emerging Diseases Unit and a Professor at the French National Conservatory of Arts and Trades (CNAM), was invited to speak on "Conquering COVID-19" at the Grandes Conférences Catholiques.

The aim of the prestigious Grandes Conférences Catholiques, which since 1931 has served as a platform for lectures, is to foster and share knowledge on topics as wide-ranging as economics, philosophy, religion, art and of course science, especially in the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is affecting the entire planet and galvanizing efforts worldwide.

Arnaud Fontanet recently gave a lecture in which he looked back on the past year of the pandemic, shared his thoughts on the lessons that can be learned and provided a basis to contemplate future developments. The lecture, now available online, is an opportunity to reflect on a year of COVID-19, find out about developments in research in the field and gain insights into what the future might hold by looking at other similar epidemics.

The starting point for this story – which will leave its mark on the broader human narrative – was an email received on December 30, 2019 that mentioned the detection of four patients with an "atypical pneumonia"...

Watch the lecture