Paris (AFP)

The government is preparing the French for the first fortnight of April "difficult" and accelerates Sunday medical evacuations of patients suffering from the coronavirus, to relieve the regions most affected by the epidemic.

"The first 15 days of April will be even more difficult than the 15 days that have just passed," warned Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Saturday, as the balance sheet of the epidemic made a new leap in France, with 319 additional hospital deaths in 24 hours.

The confinement was extended until April 15 in an attempt to stop the spread of the coronavirus, whose heavy cases are sweeping through Ile-de-France and threatening hospital services with saturation. Out of 1,500 places in the intensive care units in the Paris region, 1,300 beds are currently occupied.

The government plans to increase to 14,000 beds in intensive care against 5,000 at the start of the crisis, and the capacity to test the population will be amplified, reaching 80,000 tests per day in late April.

Faced with the glaring lack of masks, which created controversy, more than a billion protective masks were ordered, notably from China. "A narrow and intensive air bridge between France and China has been set up to facilitate the entry of masks into the territory," said Health Minister Olivier Véran on Saturday.

According to government figures, France produces 8 million masks per week, which makes it essential to import these health materials during the health crisis.

- medicalized TGV -

The new coronavirus has resulted in 319 new hospital deaths in 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 2,314 in France since the start of the epidemic, according to figures released by the government on Saturday. Of the 37,575 confirmed cases, 17,620 patients are hospitalized - including 4,273 in intensive care - and 6,624 have returned home.

To help hospitals in regions hard hit by the epidemic, medical evacuations are accelerating again on Sunday, as part of Operation Resilience launched by Emmanuel Macron.

"It is necessary to free beds, it is absolutely necessary to give air to the resuscitation service. We are always in a continuous increase in the number of patients", alarms the head of emergencies of the regional hospital center of Metz, François Braun.

Some 36 patients from the Great East will be transferred, on board two medical TGVs, to hospitals in New Aquitaine, an area still relatively spared, where they should arrive in the afternoon.

In addition, 40 coronavirus patients who were hospitalized in the intensive care units of Burgundy-Franche-Comté hospitals are being transferred to those of three departments in the Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne region.

Two patients from Metz were also evacuated on Saturday by a military helicopter to Germany and a new rotation to this country of a military helicopter, with two other patients, will "probably" be carried out Sunday early in the afternoon, according to François Braun.

- "Isolation" -

"The solution cannot be to increase the number of medical trains across the country which mobilize material and human resources disproportionate to the number of patients concerned," tackled the emergency physicians at Amuf on Saturday, launching a "solemn appeal". the mobilization of "the whole economy" to win "the health war".

The emergency room union considers that "the priority today is to immediately increase the number of intensive care beds by mobilizing all of the country's industrial, logistical and human resources by putting a stop to all non-essential activities" .

The situation in nursing homes continues to cause concern, since the elderly are among the most at risk, even if the coronavirus can strike young people, as the death of a 16-year-old girl recalled this week. Mr. Véran wished to go towards "isolation" in a single room for each of their residents.

Four residents have died in the last five days in a nursing home in the Vosges, half of the 116 residents are considered "suspected cases" of contamination by the coronavirus, announced Saturday the ARS and the prefecture.

Regarding treatments, the Minister of Health recalled that France and neighboring countries have "initiated a certain number of clinical studies, practical research protocols on patients in hospitals to test several therapeutic molecules carrying hope, in particular hydroxychloroquine, but also antiviral molecules which are known to be effective in other types of infectious diseases ".

But, he noted, "none has proven effective in France and around the world. I deplore it, but that is, alas, a fact".

© 2020 AFP