According to official figures published on Saturday March 21 by the Geneva authorities, the canton in turn passed the thousand Sars-CoV-2 positive tests, with 1,048 cases detected. The canton of Vaud, which had passed this symbolic milestone on Thursday, is now 1432. After Ticino, the epidemic has spread more quickly on the Lake Geneva region.
With more than 200 cases of new coronavirus detected per 100,000 inhabitants, the canton of Geneva is now at the same level as the canton of Vaud, which was the most affected after Ticino.
This exponential progression should continue for several more days, before we see, in the figures, whether the measures decided by the Confederation and the Canton prove to be effective or not. It takes four to five days minimum incubation, then two to three days before the result of a positive test is communicated.
At the current rate, the number of cases detected in the canton of Geneva should approach 4,000 or 5,000 by the time the epidemic curve turns around. It will take approximately the same number in the canton of Vaud. More than 10% of patients tested positive require hospitalization.
Hospitalizations on the rise
The epidemiological assessment of the canton of Geneva on March 21 also shows how quickly the number of people hospitalized increased from 43 to 145 in one week. Among them, 24 people are intubated in intensive care and placed on a ventilator – a device that pushes gas into their lungs. Many of these patients do not survive.
An eighth person with coronavirus died in Geneva on Friday. In Switzerland, the death toll rose to 80 on Saturday evening.
Together, Vaud and Geneva account for more than a third of all cases of new coronavirus in Switzerland. The country had 6,652 cases on Saturday evening, according to figures compiled by Tamedia newsrooms.
As of March 15, tests are no longer routinely performed in those with symptoms that may correspond to Covid-19. In principle, only people belonging to a risk group are assessed. The reason for this policy is a lack of analytical means and a chronic shortage of reagents.
Wednesday evening, Pascal Strupler, the director of the Federal Office of Public Health, announced that “more than 40,000 tests had been carried out in Switzerland”. In the absence of precise figures published by the authorities on this subject, it is not possible to know whether Geneva and Vaud detect suspect cases more systematically – or on the contrary less systematic – than the others.
Created: 21.03.2020, 22h01
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