Health. Coronavirus: in hospitals, “the tide is rising quickly”

holiday effect? Return of test results? “The figures are now increasing very quickly, the tide is rising too quickly,” warns the director of ARS Île-de-France, Aurélien Rousseau, reflecting the opinion of several of his counterparts in the provinces.

At its highest in some metropolises since the start of the school year, the Covid-19 epidemic has spread in recent days on French territory. Thus, the incidence rate, that is to say the number of new cases over seven days per 100,000 inhabitants, exceeds the maximum alert threshold (250) in 22 departments against 10 a week earlier.

In addition to Paris, Saint-Étienne (716), Lille (675), Lyon (582), Grenoble (460) have high incidence rates, but this is also on the rise in Clermont-Ferrand (322), Tours ( 237), Nantes (194), and in the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg where it is now close to the maximum alert threshold: “The incidence rate doubles every week and not only in Strasbourg”, notes the ARS du Grand-Est. until then spared.

As a result, hospitals are facing an increasingly high patient load in several regions. In Lyon and Lille, 50% of the available beds are occupied. In five departments of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, in the North, in Paris, operations are deprogrammed. Like the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, departments that had been spared so far have turned red in a week.

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The private sphere, friend of the virus

Faced with this degradation, calls from doctors to respect barrier gestures and protective measures, especially in the private sphere, are increasing, “The situation is serious. You have to believe us ”, launched in a joint text the doctors and deans of faculties of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. “We must not forget that patients suffer from something other than Covid and that we must take care of them, these are cardiovascular pathologies, major surgery, cancers. It is to be hoped that the night confinement measures will have an impact, but it will not be immediate, ”warns Philippe Amouyel, professor of public health at the Lille University Hospital. “We can check that you don’t go out at night, that you put on your mask on the bus or at work… But in the private sphere, there are no checks possible. The government has warned that the curfews, decided in eight cities and in the Paris region, will not take effect for two to three weeks. However, by then, the numbers will not stop worrying.

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Seniors alert

All the more so as the deterioration is also observed in those over 65, considered to be a population more at risk and most often admitted to intensive care. For the first time since May, the total number of Covid-19 patients currently in intensive care exceeded the 2,000 mark on Tuesday. It is still a long way from the peak of the epidemic, when more than 7,000 Covid-19 patients were in shifts. But between 150 and 200 serious cases enter these advanced services every day.

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