INTERVIEW
The results are final: 1,046 sailors from the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle tested positive for coronavirus out of a total of 1,760. At the microphone of Europe 1, Saturday evening, the Chief of the Naval Staff Christophe Prazuck spoke about an epidemic that was not detected early enough to prevent the boat from turning into the home of Covid -19.
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"Why is there a Charles de Gaulle case? Most likely because of the large population density on board this boat, about 2,000 sailors who meet," said Admiral Prazuck, interviewed by Wendy Bouchard in the Big Evening Newspaper . However, he explains, "measures have been put in place on board" to avoid contamination. But "these measures have been circumvented and have not made it possible to detect the start of the epidemic, and therefore to contain it."
Measures applied the day before containment
"These measures," continues the chief of staff, "it was for example, after the departure of the boat from its stopover in Brest, a questionnaire completed by each of the nearly 2,000 sailors on board. this questionnaire, the doctors identified 350 sailors on whom they were going to carry out a particular bi-daily medical follow-up. There was also the closing of places of life and a modification of the habits on board.
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Today, 60% of sailors have been infected with the coronavirus, with around 30 hospitalizations. Were the barrier measures cited by the Chief of Staff taken too late? "On the morning of March 16 (the day before the confinement imposed in France, editor's note ), the boat leaves Brest where it made a stopover for the duration of the weekend. The barrier measures are put in place from that moment, for 14 days, "recalls the admiral.
"On April 6, the boat realizes that something abnormal is happening on board, and on the 7th the mission is interrupted," continues Admiral Christophe Prazuck. The Minister (of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, Editor's note) immediately asked for an end to the mission, the start as soon as possible towards Toulon and the deployment of doctors on board the Charles de Gaulle to carry out the first tests. In the process, three seafarers are evacuated who have worsening symptoms. "
Two ongoing investigations
To find out why the boat became a hotbed of the epidemic, two investigations are under way: a command investigation on crisis management and an epidemiologist investigation. "Among the Charles de Gaulle command, there is a medical officer and an entanglement between the decisions taken to fulfill the missions and the medical decisions," said the chief of the naval staff. "The command investigation launched is done with doctors to establish the totality of the facts, establish the decisions taken and understand the why and how of this decision-making."
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But there are also other investigations, such as that of Mediapart, in which seafarers say that they have not joined the containment zone, when others left as soon as the first symptoms subsided. "The command investigation will establish these facts and these facts," replied the military official. "Were the measures badly designed, badly applied or poorly controlled, or did the virus get around all of this? That is what we want to understand."
At the microphone of Europe 1, Admiral Christophe Prazuck still evokes a "stealthy and sneaky virus" which "obviously circumvented" the measures taken on all the ships of the Navy: "We must understand what happened and adapt our procedures and our materials to ensure our resilience, "he insists, while 1,226 sailors have been contaminated by the coronavirus, out of the 40,000 men and women in the Navy.