A glimmer of hope for caregivers. The number of coronavirus resuscitation patients fell for the first time since the start of the epidemic, with 7,066 severe cases Thursday evening, 82 less than Wednesday. The Director General of Health, Jérôme Salomon, immediately warned against any temptation to declare victory, asking to "remain extremely careful".
"Finally, we can see, even if it is still far away, a small light at the end of the tunnel," said Bertrand Guidet, head of the intensive care unit at Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris, interviewed by Europe 1.
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Fewer new patients in intensive care units
Concretely, this drop in patients means that the grip on hospitals stops tightening, and could even start to loosen in the coming days. Bertrand Guidet explains these figures by containment measures. Indeed, the resuscitator notes that from now on, patients admitted to intensive care are mainly patients already hospitalized, and not new patients.
"This is a major factor, the patients we receive come very little from the city but come from patients who get worse during hospitalization," he notes.
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The death toll will not mechanically decrease
"For outings, we start to have some patients who improve enough to consider leaving them out of intensive care. This is important in terms of public health signal, and in terms of organization for intensive care services" , continues Bertrand Guidet.
But beware: this does not mean that the number of coronavirus deaths will drop in the coming days. Still more than 7,000 patients are in intensive care, of which we know that about half will not survive, according to figures from the AP-HP. Italy has experienced this drop in the number of intensive care patients since last Saturday, but it still recorded 610 deaths on Thursday in 24 hours.