The old cemetery of Puteaux (Hauts-de-Seine), December 4, 2019 (Illustration) -

Clément Follain / 20 Minutes

The milestone of 100,000 deaths linked to Covid-19 in France, resulting from the daily count of the health security agency Public Health France (SPF), has in fact been crossed for weeks already, reports 

Le Monde on

 Wednesday based on the latest data. from the Inserm epidemiology center on medical causes of death (CépiDc).

Still partial, these were presented on April 9 by epidemiologist Jean-Marie Robine, emeritus research director at Inserm, during an online seminar on Covid-19 mortality.

According to Public Health France, the Covid-19 had caused, as of April 13, 2021, 99,508 deaths in France.

Figures underestimated by Public Health France

If the CépiDc figures take longer to be made public, they are more reliable than those of SPF, because they are produced from all the death certificates filled out by doctors.

They thus allow studies by sex and age group, according to the geographic area of ​​the death and the location of the death (hospital, home, etc.).

“For the period from March 1 to December 31, 2020, there are already 75,732 certificates mentioning Covid-19 as the initial or associated cause of death, reveals Jean-Marie Robine, also scientific advisor to the management of the Institute National Demographic Studies (INED).

“As of December 31, 2020, the dashboard of the SPF epidemic showed 64,632 deaths,” adds the professor, according to his comments reported by

Le Monde

.

Clearly, for the last ten months of 2020, which corresponds to the first two waves of the epidemic in the territory, the difference is already more than 11,000 deaths between the data of SPF and those of CépiDc.

This gap has undoubtedly continued to widen since early 2021. For its part, INED had recently estimated the number of Covid-19 deaths in France at 68,000 in 2020, based on INSEE data, i.e. a delta nearly 8,000 with Inserm figures.

"An incomprehensible situation"

These figures are still provisional, recalls 

Le Monde

 : the certificates received represent 97% of those expected for the months of March to November 2020, and 90.6% for December (the analyzes are only carried out when the CépiDc has obtained more than 90 % of certificates expected for a given month, which is not yet the case for January, February and March 2021).

Jean-Marie Robine, who pleads for a reactive mortality monitoring system since the 2003 heatwave, considers the current situation incomprehensible.

“In this epidemic, we should be able to communicate reliably on the deaths of the day before.

The solution would be simple: make electronic certification of deaths compulsory for all doctors within forty-eight hours, ”insists the demographer.

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