Paris (AFP)
A new evacuation of coronavirus patients in eastern France is scheduled for Friday, as the epidemic worsens in the country with nearly 1,700 deaths, including a 16-year-old girl who has become the youngest victim.
To relieve hospitals in the Grand Est, this evacuation by air comes the day after an unprecedented transfer of patients from the East to other regions by medical TGV, in order to ease the pressure on healthcare establishments.
In addition, Emmanuel Macron gathers the social partners in audioconference at 11:00 am, to discuss in particular the means of reconciling the pursuit of economic activity and the protection of employees during the health crisis, while the derogations from the labor law worry unions.
The epidemic continues to worsen - 365 additional deaths in 24 hours - and raises fears that the resuscitation services in Ile-de-France will soon become saturated.
Julie A., the 16-year-old girl who died in hospital, came from this region. "We will never have an answer, it's unbearable," his mother, Sabine, told AFP, recounting his ordeal after tests first negative at Covid-19, then a positive test.
Called in the middle of the night by the hospital, adds Sabine, "I panicked, there are words that make you understand," she said, referring to the last moments of her daughter.
- "Extremely rare" in young people -
For the Director General of Health, Professor Jérôme Salomon, the information concerning the young girl is "important, since severe forms in young subjects are extremely rare". "They occur from time to time for multiple reasons. We see it in particular in certain viral infections (with) exceptional extremely severe forms", he underlined.
Thursday evening, the last assessment brought to 1,696 the number of deaths of Covid-19 recorded in the hospital since the beginning of the epidemic at the end of January, and 3,375 patients were in intensive care (+548 in one day), on a total of 13,904 (+ 2,365) patients hospitalized in France.
Philippe Juvin, head of the emergency department at the Pompidou hospital in Paris, suggested a "massive" transfer of patients to "the regions of France and Europe" where the epidemic will not arrive before two or three weeks, deploring the shortages of protective equipment and tests everywhere in France. "Sometimes I ask myself the question: what are we not missing?" he launched.
"Neither the caregivers nor we were prepared for this kind of event," said Thursday evening AFP Dr. Benjamin Davido, crisis medical director at the Raymond-Poincaré Hospital in Garches, who "fears the reached saturation "in Ile-de-France, when its 26 intensive care beds are already full.
- Cruel situation in retirement homes -
The epidemic, which killed at least five doctors, also killed the first ranks in the ranks of the gendarmerie.
The situation is particularly cruel in retirement homes where the number of deaths is not exactly known, but is at least in the tens of deaths.
Confined to their home for more than a week, 85% of French people are "worried" about themselves and their family, according to an Ifop-Fiducial survey carried out on March 24-25 for CNews and Sud Radio, compared to 44% at the end of January.
The government will announce "in a few days" the likely extension of the containment. The scientific council recommended extending it, suggesting a total of six weeks, until the end of April.
The mobilization is also military with the announcement by Emmanuel Macron of an operation "Resilience" which "will be entirely devoted to aid and support to populations, as well as to support public services to cope with the epidemic, in metropolitan France and overseas ".
During the night of Thursday to Friday, the president announced on his Twitter account after a discussion with his American counterpart Donald Trump, a "new important initiative" with the United States and other countries in the face of the Covid-19 crisis, without further details.
On the treatment side, chloroquine, currently being tested but which is debating, can be administered "under the responsibility of a doctor", for patients with coronavirus: its use is now governed by a decree published in the Official Journal on Thursday.
© 2020 AFP