Second wave of coronavirus: "We are not yet overflowing, we are in saturation"

INTERVIEW

The expression was distant, at the end of spring and during the summer, when the epidemic ebbed into all regions after containment.

But for several weeks, as the indicators deteriorate at the national level, it has materialized: the second wave of coronavirus threatens to overwhelm the hospital capacities of France.

Frédéric Adnet, head of the emergency department at the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny, in Seine-Saint-Denis, was Patrick Cohen's guest on Europe 1, Thursday noon, to discuss the current epidemic situation in France.

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Coronavirus: follow the evolution of the situation Thursday, October 1

"We are not yet in overflow, we are in saturation", specifies the person in charge of Samu 93. "Currently, we are experiencing a return of these patients, but a return on a continuum. There is a gradual rise in the number of patients that we see arriving in the emergency room, between one and ten per day. At the top of the wave, we were 100 per day ", explains Frédéric Adnet, according to whom the first wave of spring looked like a" a tsunami which almost took us all away. "

Threat for "non-Covid" patients

This rise in the number of emergency room patients is "gradual, but constant": "This is what endangers the hospital. We have had patients arriving for a month. It is a constant flow that ends by saturating our beds, our intensive care lines, our hospital beds. "

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This rise "which lasts" represents a "threat" for interventions on "non-Covid" patients in the hospital: "We have set thresholds", details Frédéric Adnet about measures of the progression of the epidemic.

"The threshold for patients admitted to intensive care has been set at 30%. Currently, in Ile-de-France, we are at 32%. This is a threshold from which we must begin to have a deprogramming policy, which is not trivial. It is a major measure that will cause some patients to lose their chances (of survival) to take care of other patients. "

Frédéric Adnet, head of the emergency department at the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny: "There is a threat to non # COVID19 patients and if we do not take care of them, they too risk dying" pic.twitter. com / gRhEfXX6Dv

- Europe 1 (@ Europe1) October 1, 2020

Empower the population

But for all that, Frédéric Adnet does not deplore a lack of efforts on the increase in the number of intensive care beds since March: "Training specialized personnel takes a lot of time. It does not happen in a few months, it is a policy on the long term."

For example, a resuscitator has studied eleven years, a nurse at least three years.

On the other hand, the head of emergency at the Avicenna hospital believes that "we must clearly adopt a policy of opening new beds and immediately stop the closure of beds and public hospitals".

>> Find the interviews of Patrick Cohen in Europe midi in replay and in podcast here

For the short term, on the other hand, the professional insists on the absolute need to respect barrier gestures, which involves more responsibility than punishment of the population.

A population whose summer behavior led to this second wave being generated, points out Frédéric Adnet: "What we are currently paying for is probably an extreme relaxation that there was after the deconfinement."