The boring midday heat did not dissuade the inhabitants of Sarcelles (Val-d’Oise) and the surrounding area. This Tuesday, June 23, in barely an hour and a half, they are already 150 to have come to be tested at the Valéry-Watteau neighborhood center. This is the seventh mobile massive screening operation for the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 organized in the city since May 26, the fifth in a week, for nearly 2,000 people tested.
“When I heard on TV that there were cases in Sarcelles, I said to myself to get tested, justifies Joël Bleicher, 34, resident of the Chantepie district. The serology allows you to know if I have had it and to be reassured even if, apart from transport and the supermarket, I have not taken any particular risks. ” Each person first undergoes a serological test, the results of which are known on the spot, then another virological test (PCR, for which it is necessary to wait 24 to 48 hours), before being received by a doctor. Yousra Baroudi, a resident of the neighborhood, is accompanied by her 5 and a half year old son, also masked: “I would like to go down south to my parents, I don’t want to bring back the virus, explains the young woman of 31 years. My mother is worried, she sees that it goes on the news, she must believe that I am in a nest of infection… ”
For the time being, no epidemic focus (“cluster”), ie at least three cases of contamination over a period of seven days in the same community or the same gathering, has been identified. But for the past fortnight, Sarcelles, which, along with other municipalities in Ile-de-France, has been the subject of increased vigilance, has displayed indicators that challenge. “On 227 samples taken on June 10, the positivity rate was 3.1% against a regional average of 0.7%. From there, we reprogrammed a series of new samples ”, explains Aurélien Rousseau, Director General of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) Ile-de-France. To date, the positivity rate on these screenings across the city has averaged 2.1%. In addition, the incidence (the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants) is around 50 cases in Sarcelles, against 4.2 nationally.
Many asymptomatic cases
Why are these rates higher in Sarcelles than elsewhere? Should we fear a resumption of epidemic activity strictly speaking or are the cases detected linked to past contamination? To determine the causes of this “over-incidence”, the ARS launched a specific epidemiological investigation with Public Health France. The goal is to prevent a restart of the epidemic in the city, which suffered a heavy toll during the first wave: during the months of March and April, 209 deaths were recorded against 52 in 2019 at the same period, according to the Regional Health Observatory.
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