Fewer people hospitalized, fewer patients in intensive care. If the death toll continues to climb, some figures from the Covid-19 coronavirus epidemic are, if not positive, at least encouraging in Hauts-de-France.
However, the number of deaths remains significant. 1,077 people have died in Hauts-de-France hospitals as a result of the Covid-19 coronavirus since the start of the epidemic (1er March). This figure is the most recent communicated by the government site Géodes (Public health France). As of Friday, there were 1,054 deaths (an increase of 2.18%)
These figures only include deaths in regional hospitals.
Since March 31, the ARS no longer communicates the death toll by place of residence. For the sake of harmonization, it now refers to the government site Géodes (Santé publique France), which accounts for deaths occurring in regional hospitals, which includes patients transferred from other departments or other regions.
In this hospital assessment, In addition, 358 deaths occurred in Accommodation Establishments for Dependent Elderly (Ehpad) Hauts-de-France between 1er March and April 16.
Number of confirmed cases
According to the latest report communicated this Saturday, April 18, 2020 by the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Hauts-de-France, the region now officially has a total of 9,386 confirmed cases of Covid-19 coronavirus, while we counted 9121 Friday. This represents an increase of 2.91% in 24 hours.
Hospitalized patients, intensive care patients: a figure that continues to decline
The number of patients hospitalized in Hauts-de-France this Saturday amounts to 2516 people, only one less than Friday.
Among them, 476 are currently being treated in a resuscitation or intensive care unit, a figure which is experiencing a new drop (as in recent days) compared to Friday: 18 fewer patients.
In Hauts-de-France, the hospitals in the North receive the most intensive care patients (234) ahead of those in Pas-de-Calais (82), Oise (65), Somme (54 ), and Aisne (41).
Since April 6, Santé Publique France has also communicated daily data on new hospitalizations for Covid-19, new patient admissions and new hospital discharges.
Thus, in the past 24 hours, 120 people have been newly hospitalized for Covid-19 (compared to 190 on Friday) and 12 have been newly admitted to intensive care (22 on Friday).
88 other patients, meanwhile, left the hospital, after having been treated for coronavirus, and returned home, a figure down slightly (159 Friday).
Since 1er March, 2744 people hospitalized in Hauts-de-France because of Covid-19 have already been able to return to their homes.
National figures
At the national level, there are in France, this Friday, April 17, 19,323 deaths were recorded in France (+642 in 24 hours), in the hospital and in Ehpad.
The number of people in intensive care fell for the ninth consecutive day with 194 patients less this Saturday, for a total of 5,833 people in intensive care. “We observed a sharp decrease in emergency room activity “ (-48% passages), according to Jérôme Salomon, Director General of Health.
In the world, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control this Saturday recorded more than 153,000 deaths linked to this Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
The difficult count of coronavirus deaths
The daily counting of the victims of Covid-19 is a delicate exercise, the collection of data in real time being only fragmented and the methods vary depending on the country. Place of death, way of identifying the causes of death, different timeframes for reporting information: several factors can have an impact on these accounts, which are necessarily undervalued but essential for monitoring the evolution of the pandemic. This is a real “statistical challenge“, emphasizes the French institute for demographic studies, INED.
While Spain and South Korea count all deaths of people who test positive for Covid-19, whether in or out of the hospital, this is not the case in all countries. Iranian figures, for example, appear to only include hospital deaths. Until recently, deaths in retirement homes were also not included in official French and British figures. They are however far from being marginal, since they now represent more than a third of the balance sheet in France.
In the United States, the deaths taken into account vary from state to state: New York State includes retirement homes, California does not. Even in Italy, which has one of the heaviest balance sheets in the world, not all deaths in retirement homes have been recorded. If a large epidemic focus is detected in an establishment, tests are carried out and deaths counted, but if an establishment is less affected, it is likely that this will not be the case, explains the Italian Civil Protection.
While some countries, such as South Korea, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, include in their figures all people who tested positive for coronavirus, even those who died from complications of a preexisting disease, other countries are more selective. In Iran, patients tested positive but dying from another are excluded from the assessments “severe respiratory illness“In the United States there are more and more testimonies from people whose relatives have died, officially of pneumonia, before the tests were available or at a time when they were difficult to obtain.
During an epidemic, “the feedback and processing of information, even accelerated, is done with a few days delay and does not cover all deaths. It takes several weeks or months to be able to accurately count all the dead“, estimate Gilles Pison and France Meslé, demographers at INED, on The Conversation website. In the United States, even in the absence of a test, death certificates must mention if Covid-19 is the cause”likely“of death, but these certificates take a long time to go up and cannot be taken into account for the real-time reviews.
In Spain, the civil registers and the number of burials show an excess mortality much higher than that which should result from the official balance sheet of the Covid-19. Due to lack of tests, Spain performs very few post-mortem screenings. Thus, if a person has not been screened before dying, he is not counted by the health authorities. Judicial data, which is less restrictive, suggests a much better balance sheet: for example, the Superior Court of Castile-La Mancha registered in March 1921 death certificates “whose cause is due to the Covid or to a suspicion of Covid“, almost three times more than the 708 dead (Covid-19 positive) listed on March 31 by health authorities.
Another illustration: in Bergamo, in Lombardy, were recorded, during the first half of March, 108 more deaths (+ 193%) than a year earlier … but only 31 deaths linked to Covid-19.
Sometimes the very sincerity of the figures published is called into question. In Iran, official reports have been challenged, particularly at the start of the epidemic, by provincial officials and parliamentarians. Even the official Irna agency has sometimes released figures higher than those of the authorities, the balance sheets then denied by the government. Outside of the country, Washington, in particular, criticized Tehran for making up its figures.
Regarding China, the cradle of the epidemic, a confidential report of American intelligence, quoted by the Bloomberg agency, accused Beijing of having intentionally undervalued its balance sheet. His figures were also questioned by several Iranian officials, but the health ministry spokesman was forced to correct his remarks after describing the Chinese record as “bad taste joke“.
(With AFP)
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