For doctor Eric Cua, infectious disease specialist at the CHU de Nice, -

CHU de Nice

  • The Covid-19 epidemic is progressing constantly but slowly in the Alpes-Maritimes.

  • To cope, a dedicated unit with 20 beds will open at the Nice University Hospital.

The number of hospitalized Covid-19 patients now exceeds 100 people in the Alpes-Maritimes, according to figures released Tuesday evening by the Regional Health Agency (ARS) Paca.

Four deaths are also to be deplored in the last 24 hours, indicates the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes.

The inflectiologist Eric Cua, from the CHU de Nice, takes stock of the situation with

20 Minutes

.

Are we at the start of a second wave in the Alpes-Maritimes?

No.

It's a bit of a spooky term.

What has been called “the first wave” of Covid-19 has been the saturation of the health system, which has been real in some departments in the East and in the Paris region.

This has never been the case in the Alpes-Maritimes.

The figures published by the ARS Paca however show an upsurge in the number of people positive for Covid-19, including in intensive care ...

For a month, we have indeed observed in Nice and throughout the Alpes-Maritimes a real resumption of the epidemic.

It is progressive and constant.

This slow increase in load gives us time to adapt the offer of care.

So the current situation and its evolution do not seem worrying to you?

There is nothing alarming to date in the Alpes-Maritimes.

It is not a tsunami.

What concerns us today is adapting the healthcare offer.

During the first wave we devoted everything to the Covid.

We had deprogrammed all possible interventions.

Today, we are organizing to welcome patients with Covid-19 and all the others.

How are you going to do it?

In the coming hours, we will be opening a new 20-bed “Covid unit” just above our infectious disease department, where we are keeping ten beds for other pathologies.

We are still in a period where the next day is uncertain, so we are constantly adapting… and unfortunately with zero additional human resources.

We ask the ARS to recruit at least one person.

Where is the large clinical trial launched in June with critically ill patients?

It is a worldwide trial that the CHU de Nice has the honor to coordinate at European level.

The goal is to recruit 1,200 patients, which is methodologically very solid, to test a new drug, which contains a molecule that is both immunomodulatory and antiviral.

The trial started when the epidemic died down, so it fell behind schedule.

But the first in the world was a Niçois, it's a great honor!

As the epidemic resumes, we are starting to include more and more patients in this trial again.

There are currently seven patients in Nice and 20 around the world.

Nice

Villeneuve-Loubet: The prefect imposes the wearing of a mask, the mayor has posters put up with a masked boar

Society

Coronavirus: "Each chair is occupied", "too hot with the mask" ... In lecture halls, a health protocol in pain

  • Society

  • Coronavirus

  • Public health

  • Covid 19

  • Health

  • Nice