The coronavirus epidemic has caused to date the death of 562 patients (112 additional in 24 hours) in France and 6,172 patients are hospitalized, including nearly 1,525 serious cases in intensive care, announced on Saturday the Ministry of Health.
In 24 hours, the number of people hospitalized increased by 946 and that of severe cases in intensive care by more than 220. “We are rapidly evolving towards a generalized epidemic in the territory”, underlined the Directorate General of Health in a point situation, calling for “strict compliance with confinement instructions (and) barrier measures” such as washing your hands regularly and maintaining a minimum distance of one meter between people.
The DGS also stresses that “many uncertainties remain on the behavior of the virus but especially on the impact of individual and collective barrier measures (…), which are still imperfectly applied. However, we can all avoid serious cases avoid dead by being very respectful of the instructions. “
The DGS also stresses that “more than 4,000 tests are carried out every day” and that since the start of the epidemic “more than 60,000 tests have already been carried out”.
Confined before the rest of the population, retirement homes are not spared from the coronavirus, which is already hitting nursing homes across the country, making professionals in the sector fear the worst.
Twelve deaths in a nursing home in Doubs, several in Hérault, infectious foci in Vienna and in Paris … Despite strict confinement, accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people are not immune to Covid-19, particularly virulent among their residents. “The average age there is over 85 years, the consequences could be dramatic”, worried already in early March Florence Arnaiz-Maumé.
The Ehpad had then begun to barricade themselves: restricted visits, temperature measurement, hydroalcoholic gel and masks … “Barrier measures” which were to “block the entry of the virus”, explained the general delegate of the federation of the houses of private retreat (Synerpa).
Three weeks later, the locks broke. In Thise, near Besançon, 12 residents have died since the detection of the first cases on March 5.
All presented the symptoms of the coronavirus, but “it is difficult to know if these deaths are linked (to the epidemic) because, like everywhere in France, one does not detect any more systematically the new cases”, observes a spokesperson of this establishment.
“The first two cases are tested, and once the presence of Covid-19 is confirmed, we no longer do any tests,” confirms Olivier Obrecht, deputy director general of ARS Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.
The situation is far from isolated: out of the 400 nursing homes in the region, “a certain number observe people with symptoms of the Covid-19 type”, he adds.
The balance sheet should therefore further increase and, for lack of tests, “the number of deaths will only be known once the epidemic is behind us”.
“Isolation in room”
In the meantime, the same tragedy has taken place in Mauguio, near Montpellier, where the local press reports 5 deaths since March 10, as well as fifty suspected cases among residents and a handful of staff tested positive.
Another infectious focus has broken out in La Puye, not far from Poitiers, where ARS Aquitaine lists 25 caregivers and 11 contaminated residents, including an 85-year-old woman who died on March 15. In the neighboring convent, five nuns from the Daughters of the Cross congregation were also tested positive for coronavirus.
Two other cases were detected in nursing homes in the region, one in Vienne, the other in Angoulême (Charente), specifies the ARS.
Paris is not immune either: in an establishment in the east of the capital, a resident tested positive during a hospitalization in mid-March and six others “present signs of infection”, for the moment without gravity.
To avoid the spread of the virus, these suspected cases are the subject of “room isolation for 14 days”.
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