"Their clinical condition shows no sign of seriousness," said Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn. Five new patients of the coronavirus appeared in Asia were identified and hospitalized in France, British having rubbed shoulders at the end of January in a chalet of Haute-Savoie a compatriot returning from Singapore.
These cases represent a "cluster", that is to say a grouping of several cases around an "initial case", a British national having stayed from January 24, for four days, in Contamines-Montjoie in Haute -Savoie, announced the Minister of Health on Saturday. This Briton was coming back from Singapore, Agnès Buzyn clarified to the press.
These five people positive for the new coronavirus - four adults and a child - but also other "close contacts" of this Briton, "ie 11 people in all, all of British nationality", who all lived in the same chalet, were hospitalized overnight Friday to Saturday in Lyon, Saint-Etienne and Grenoble, according to the minister.
Agnès Buzyn expected on site Sunday
If in this ski resort, the authorities and part of the inhabitants call not to give in to psychosis, others struggle to hide their concern. Agnès Buzyn will travel to this village on Sunday, where the tourist season is in full swing with the start of the Parisian winter holidays.
According to the mayor of Contamines-Montjoie, Etienne Jacquet, the minister “will be able to meet families, parents of students to explain to them concretely, as she knows how to do, that all measures are implemented to ensure health security on the 'entire territory of Contamines-Montjoie'.
In Annecy, the director of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Jean-Yves Grall, announced in the afternoon to the press the closure "next week" of the two schools frequented by the affected child, aged 9 years. Usually enrolled in Contamines-Montjoie, where the school accommodates 95 students, this CM1 student had followed French lessons Thursday morning in a school in Saint-Gervais, attended by about 200 students.
"We must not panic an entire population"
The mayor of Saint-Gervais, Jean-Marc Peillex wanted to put into perspective the risk of contamination in the school of his commune where the young Briton "did not rub shoulders with a whole school but he rubbed shoulders with half a day for five students" . “You shouldn't panic an entire population. It is a flu but it is not an evacuation of the territory ”. Dr Anne-Marie Durand, director of public health at the ARS, recalled that contact "between people, close and prolonged" was necessary for contamination.
The 11 hospitalized people stayed in two chalets in the resort, seven people in one and four in the other. "The ARS has had the chalets disinfected and is responsible for finding all contact cases," said Etienne Jacquet, who does not know which means of transport these British tourists used to come to Haute-Savoie.
The British national at the origin of these five new infections himself returned to England on January 28, and is not included in the accounts of the Ministry of Health. These new cases are in addition to the six reported so far on French territory. Patients still hospitalized even if several are better and could leave within a few days. One of them, however, an 80-year-old Chinese patient in intensive care in Paris is "still in critical condition", recalled on Saturday the Director General of Health, Professor Jérôme Salomon.
To inform the inhabitants of Haute-Savoie, a telephone number dedicated to this "cluster" has been opened: 0800 100 379 and an information meeting was held at 7 p.m. in Contamines-Montjoie.
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