The health situation in Seine-Saint-Denis, where the incidence rate is the highest in France, greatly worries the authorities.
Caregivers, interviewed by Europe 1, say they are "on the verge of rupture" in intensive care units.
The Paris region is one of the regions most affected by the coronavirus.
The department of Seine-Saint-Denis is particularly worrying, with the highest incidence rate in France (505 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the last seven days, against 425 per 100,000 in Ile-de-France).
Resuscitation services are almost saturated and the authorities fear a similar situation last November, at the height of the second wave.
Europe 1 interviewed caregivers from the department.
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Resuscitation services "on the verge of collapse"
In some hospitals in Seine-Saint-Denis, all the resuscitation beds have been occupied for two weeks.
"Every day we go around the intensive care unit to see the most suitable patient to leave. Even if he should not have been released, we replace him with a more serious patient. For the moment, we have not. no sorting out of arrivals in intensive care, but we are on the verge of rupture, "warns Yves Cohen, head of the intensive care unit at the Avicenne hospital in Bobigny.
The resuscitator asks for reinforcements to relieve the caregivers, exhausted by this situation.
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"A population that lives in conditions of significant promiscuity"
The socio-economic context of the department partly explains this situation.
"In family units, we have a population that lives in conditions of significant promiscuity, which favors the transmission of the virus. Many are also in jobs exposed to the public, such as bus drivers, cashiers ... It is also a additional risk factor ", analyzes Frédéric Adnet, emergency director of the Avicenne hospital.
In Bobigny, the situation is close to the peak of November.
But this time, two out of three patients are infected with the English variant, which is more contagious and which seems to be associated with more serious forms.