Patients with symptoms of Covid-19 were for the first time in the majority among people who tested positive for the new coronavirus last week, Public Health France announced on Friday.
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So far, a majority of positive cases have been asymptomatic people, carriers of the virus and therefore likely to be contagious, but who themselves did not show signs of the disease. “More than half of the positive cases (51%) showed symptoms” during the week of August 17-23, up from 48% the week before. “This proportion is increasing and for the first time the number of symptomatic cases is higher than asymptomatic”, underlines Public Health France in its weekly update on the Covid-19 epidemic.
Information on the presence of symptoms, however, was only available for 20,681 people out of the 26,890 who tested positive last week.
The number of contamination on the rise
This number of positive cases continued its “exponential progression” last week, increasing by 58%, faster than that of the screening rate (+ 32%).
This increase is faster in young adults (+ 86% in 20–24 year olds, + 65% in 25–29 year olds), but it concerns “all age groups”, underlines the health agency , for example with 43% more cases in 65–74 years and 13% more in people aged 75 and over. 14 departments have an incidence (number of new cases reported to the population) above the alert threshold of 50 per 100,000 inhabitants, including five in Ile-de-France and three in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
The highest incidence rate was observed in Bouches-du-Rhône (140 per 100,000 inhabitants compared to 87 the previous week) and the Alpes Maritimes (102 / 100,000) followed by Paris (97 / 100,000 excluding tests at airports), details Public Health France.
At the national level, this incidence rate is approaching the alert threshold, at 40.1 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, against 25.6 the previous week.
More hospitalizations, but fewer deaths
Public Health France also points to a continued increase in new hospitalizations (+ 7.5% to 1,084) and intensive care admissions (+ 36% to 174).
The agency also highlights a “continued increase” in the number of outbreaks of contagion (“clusters”) and an “increase in the number of reports in nursing homes”. The number of deaths linked to Covid-19, on the other hand, fell, with 65 deaths compared to 97 the previous week.
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