• The "white plan" was launched in hospitals in the Paca region, with the aim of opening 110 additional resuscitation beds by next Monday.

  • The bed occupancy rate is currently 88%, while the authorities expect a "massive" arrival.

  • The population of the Paca region is less vaccinated than the national average and the tourist season is in full swing.

The health situation is deteriorating rapidly in the Paca region.

This in a way "faster and more serious", warns Sébastien Debeaumont, deputy director general of ARS Paca, than last summer when we found the same summer ingredients.

The white plan was launched in hospitals and the Regional Health Agency (ARS) calls on nursing staff, retirees, liberal, students or employees, on vacation or residents, to come and strengthen the hospitals.

20 Minutes

 takes stock of the epidemic dynamics in the region.

Where are we with the circulation of the virus?

In Paca, 97% of new contaminations are by the Delta strain, against 92% nationally. The incidence rate reached 562 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, more than twice the national average (225). However, there are disparities between departments. The least affected is the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, with a rate of 310 and the most affected is the Alpes-Maritimes where the incidence rate is 733, i.e. the highest in mainland France (excluding Corsica ).

The virus is now circulating in all age groups.

The contamination of people over 60 has jumped 90% in a week.

This rebound also concerns medico-social establishments, nursing homes and centers for people with disabilities, "without having a serious form," underlines the ARS.

The 20-25s remain the most affected.

Last week, 1.8% of this entire age group was infected.

What situation are the hospitals in?

As written above, the white plan for level 3 has been activated, given that Covid-19 patients admitted to intensive care represent more than 30% of the available beds. In detail, the Paca region, in its summer configuration, has 530 beds. 88% of them are occupied, of which 36%, at the start of the week, were by Covid-19 patients. The increase in hospitalizations is sustained. The ARS notes a 55.7% increase in conventional hospitalizations and 45% more admissions to critical care.

The ARS now notes "a predominance of 35-50 year olds, without necessarily co-morbidity and little or no vaccination" in hospitals.

The white plan should allow, by August 9, the deployment of 110 additional beds.

Level 4, if reached, will lead to the deprogramming of medical interventions deemed non-urgent, which the authorities wish to avoid at all costs.

What about vaccination?

Paca is "historically a region where there is a vaccine-skepticism", indicates Sébastien Debeaumont, deputy director general of ARS Paca.

“And the one against Covid-19 is unfortunately no exception”.

As of August 1, 70% of those aged 12 and over had received at least one first injection in the area, and 60% had a complete vaccination schedule.

A level 10% lower than the national average.

Emmanuel Macron's announcements caused “a start.

But it will be necessary to distinguish between local and tourist populations among these new vaccines, ”added Sébastien Debeaumont.

What pressure is the tourist influx putting on the health system?

In intensive care units, the majority of new entrants are from Paca.

The tourist influx, however, exerts a "very strong" pressure on the health system in particular because of the accidents of the life and of the road.

In this summer period, "we expect a massive arrival of Covid-19 patients but also outside Covid-19", notes the ARS.

What consequences can the call for a strike by nursing staff have?

The Sud and CGT unions called on nursing staff to go on strike to protest against the compulsory vaccination in their profession. "After asking caregivers to take risks, they are now threatened with layoff", summarizes Guillaume Algrin, general secretary of the CGT union of hospitals south of Marseille. The nursing profession has an obligation of service and the administrations can have recourse to requisitions of personnel, if necessary.

"We will continue to provide care," commented the communication from the AP-HM.

For now, we have not received the official text.

We have no instructions as to whether we should suspend wages.

However, as long as we have not received the texts, we have no position.

The examination of the law by the Constitutional Council on August 5 should make it possible to see more clearly.

The ARS recalled, it, "to the duty of exemplarity of caregivers, to their moral and ethical obligation", stressing that the vaccination obligation is "already a reality to exercise, with, in particular, the need to be protected against hepatitis ”.

The authority said, moreover, "to hear and know how to listen" to the caregivers and to wait "to see in the long term the capacity of adhesion" to this movement.

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  • Health

  • Strike

  • Hospital

  • Regional health agency

  • Nice

  • Delta variant

  • Marseilles

  • Covid 19

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