Several establishments welcoming elderly dependents have been hit by cases of coronavirus. The main federations in the sector fear 100,000 deaths and denounce the unpreparedness for a crisis that first affects the oldest.

ANALYSIS

They are the first victims of the coronavirus epidemic: will the elderly bear the brunt of the unprecedented health crisis in France today? In a letter, the main federations of the sector alerted the Minister of Health on Friday on a figure: they fear "100,000 dead" of Covid-19 in these establishments, particularly scrutinized.

>> LIVE - Coronavirus: follow the evolution of the situation Sunday March 22

Twelve deaths in a Doubs establishment, several in the Hérault, infectious foci in Vienna and Paris… Despite a strict confinement, the Ehpad have already been affected. "The average age there is over 85 years, the consequences could be dramatic," worried already in early March Florence Arnaiz-Maumé, general delegate of Synerpa, the National Syndicate of establishments and private residences for the elderly.

High demand for masks

The Ehpad had then started to barricade themselves: restricted visits, temperature measurement, hydroalcoholic gel and masks ... "Barrier measures" which were to "block the entry of the virus", explained Florence Arnaiz-Maumé. Three weeks later, the locks broke. In Thise, near Besançon, 12 residents have died since the detection of the first cases on March 5.

The balance sheet should get even heavier and, for lack of tests, "the number of deaths will only be known once the epidemic is behind us", estimates Olivier Obrecht, deputy director general of ARS Bourgogne-Franche-Comté .

CORONAVIRUS ESSENTIALS

> What do we know about the lifespan of the epidemic?

> Update on the exit permit required to travel

> How long are we contagious?

> How to obtain a compensated work stoppage in order to keep your children?

> Our advice if you are sick at home

"Today we are not in a situation of an epidemic peak in establishments", assures Pascal Champvert. The president of the association of directors of retirement homes (AD-PA) that "what will prevent it is that we have masks in the long term and in sufficient numbers".

A stock that can leave "in three days"

For now, the account is not really there in the Ehpad. "If there is a suspicious case, it can go very quickly," warned Saturday evening on Europe 1 Séverine Laboue, director of the Loos-Haubourdin Hospital Group, in the North. "We only have 3,000 masks per residence, it leaves in three days."

Has the government taken the measure of the emergency? For the next two weeks, indicated the Minister of Health Olivier Véran on Saturday afternoon, priority will be given for these masks to health workers in the city as well as to the hospital and to people working with the elderly, with in particular 500,000 masks per day for nursing home staff.

"The Ehpad are not identified as a priority for the deliveries of masks which have just been announced by the government," retorts Séverine Laboue. "We are starting to no longer be delivered ... We are used to having masks, we use them with each episode of seasonal flu and there, at the end of the flu epidemic, our stocks are in shortage."