“The fate of the epidemic is in our hands”, warns Jérôme Salomon

In France, the epidemic of coronavirus shows signs of recovery. “The signals are there”, confirmed the director general of health
Jerome Salomon, invited on France Inter this Friday. It calls for prevention in the face of slackening and respect for barrier gestures.

“The indicators are bad, the signals are very worrying and the situation is deteriorating week after week. But there is no inevitability. The fate of the epidemic is in our hands, ”said Jérôme Salomon. “We can only be worried when we see that a hundred people are admitted to the hospital every day, when we see that 120 people are in intensive care. We can decide together to curb the epidemic. “

About twenty departments monitored

Two departments at risk are particularly monitored: these are Paris and the Bouches-du-Rhône, and particularly the city of Marseille. “These are areas of urban density, where there is a lot of population flow, transport,” he explains. Beyond these areas, about twenty departments are above a certain threshold of vigilance, he warned, acknowledging that the situation in France is “very heterogeneous”. “In Mayotte as in Guyana, the situation is improving. Currently there is no alert on
overseas. »

Jérôme Salomon: “We are seeing two departments that are particularly at risk: Paris and Marseille. We are also monitoring around twenty departments that are above a certain vigilance threshold.” #Covid19 #le69inter pic.twitter.com/YBICIQzrg4

– France Inter (@franceinter) August 14, 2020

The Director General of Health recalled the importance of barrier gestures and in particular of hand washing. “We encourage people to respect all of these barrier measures and to practice common sense. You have to be very attentive to those close to you and to your office colleagues, ”he insisted, while 50% of clusters are formed in companies, including 20% ​​in private companies. Jérôme Salomon also announced a new distribution of masks in France: “The price of the mask will drop sharply in September. It must be available to the most precarious, the most vulnerable. “

According to the Directorate General of Health (DGS), the monitoring indicators for the Covid-19 epidemic in France “continue to deteriorate” with a number of new confirmed cases which “is increasing regularly”. Over the past 24 hours, 2,669 new cases have been detected (against 2,524 on Wednesday), noted the DGS in its daily update Thursday.

–