Featured: one of the battles of the war against the Covid-19

Audio 05:07

By: Aurélien Devernoix

Publicity

A battle is waged in retirement homes or EPHAD, since it is the acronym now used. And the challenge is immense, relates La Croix . More than 2,400 elderly people have already died in these institutions and this number could increase exponentially.

The newspaper gives the floor to several doctors, who recommend urgent action, with the objective of avoiding the entry of the coronavirus into the EPHAD still spared, about 2/3 of the total of establishments.

The strategy is clear: barrier gestures of course, but above all massive screening, directed in particular towards healthcare personnel, likely to introduce the disease, but also their relatives. This is the protocol that has been implemented in the Occitania region, for example.

Because when the covid-19 has already entered, it becomes difficult to stop it: the article explains that the elderly sufferers do not necessarily develop all the symptoms, this can result in falls or an inability to get up, which which is not unusual in seniors, which is likely to conceal the presence of the disease.

The alert launched by specialists several weeks ago seems in any case to have been heard, notes La Croix : " The Minister of Health Olivier Véran has announced the launch of massive screening operations in establishments welcoming the most fragile people " .

Covid-19 which would also wreak havoc among overweight or obese people

Le Monde examines the subject and reports that in Europe, this category “ represents a high or very high proportion of people admitted to intensive care . "

Doctors, however, remain cautious about the cause and effect relationship, but find that many patients in a serious condition accumulate overweight, hypertension and diabetes. They are mainly men, on average 63 years old according to the European Research Network in artificial ventilation, created in March as part of the epidemic.

Le Monde also relays an American study reporting a risk of mortality which rises parallel to the body mass index. Obese people are notably more exposed to the risks of pulmonary embolism than covid-19 can trigger.

A nutritionist also notes that the proportion of overweight people is greater in the most disadvantaged areas where containment measures can be complicated to comply with, due to cramped housing or the inability to telecommute.

Overweight, diabetes and poverty, a deadly cocktail that fears the worst for black and Hispanic populations in the United States

Because covid-19 is already wreaking havoc, particularly among African-Americans, reports the New York Times . In Chicago, for example, half of the cases recorded and 72% of the deaths come from the black community, which does not even represent a third of the inhabitants of the city. " It's a call to act urgently, " said Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot. But what worries even more is that all social classes in the community are affected, the result according to the New York Times , of ancestral structural inequalities. Inequalities that are perpetuated since in addition to the fact that African-Americans sometimes do not have health insurance, data would indicate according to the daily newspaper, that they are less tested when they present mild symptoms and that this can both favor contagion and cause complications for lack of medical follow-up.

Le Monde and Mediapart went to Louisiana where 15 years after Hurricane Katrina, the fear of a new catastrophe linked to the coronavirus is mounting.

" Densely populated, the city of New Orleans is on the verge of paying one of the heaviest tolls to the pandemic ", worries Le Monde , the number of cases reported to the population following that of New York, epicenter of the epidemic in the country.

Louisiana however hopes to capitalize on the lessons learned during Katrina, continues the newspaper, and the inhabitants rigorously follow the containment measures decreed.

But that might not be enough, warns Mediapart , referring to the shortage of respirators: " out of the 5,000 requested from the federal government by the governor of Louisiana, only 150 have arrived ." The state is among the worst students in the country in terms of obesity, hypertension and diabetes, recalls the news site. And more broadly, it is the entire southeast of the United States which is threatened: health systems in Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi are largely degraded, especially in rural areas.

There is also concern in Florida, where local authorities have been slow to apply health safety measures. However, the Sunshine State, explains Mediapart, welcomes a large population of elderly people, who are fragile when faced with covid-19.

The lack of enthusiasm shown by Donald Trump and his government to allocate medical resources to the most affected areas also arouses anger, but a volunteer at a screening center in Louisiana is not surprised " here, we learned to count only on ourselves ”, with reference to the fiasco of the federal government during Katrina.

And then the Team paints a portrait of a daily hero in the fight against the epidemic in France

The professional rugby player from Carcassonne Bakary Meïté decided to take advantage of the suspension of the Pro D2 championship to become a maintenance worker in a Parisian hospital. The third Franco-Ivorian line joins the Sainte Perrine hospital 6 days a week to clean rooms and corridors. " It is difficult on a daily basis, " he concedes, " but the process was not difficult to take ". " Getting up early to go to work is the daily life of a lot of people, it has been my mother's job for 30 years, I don't have the feeling of doing something extraordinary ". Lesson of humility in times of coronavirus.

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• Newspaper
• Coronavirus
• Containment