With the highest incidence rate in France, Reunion is swept away by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which generates strong tensions in hospital services, in particular in intensive care, on the island.

With 5,480 contaminations per 100,000 inhabitants on January 21, Reunion has the highest incidence rate in France, according to the Public Health France site.

The majority Omicron variant on the island

While the island has been under curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. since January 1, it totaled nearly 47,000 cases of contamination and 38 deaths between January 15 and 21, according to figures from the prefecture.

Tuesday, out of 111 available beds, “65 intensive care beds (were) occupied by patients positive for Covid-19 and 36 by patients with other pathologies” representing an occupancy rate of 91%, indicated the prefecture. Tuesday evening.

Our file on Reunion

“In intensive care we are almost at the end”, for his part said Wednesday morning Peter Von Theobald, president of the Medical Commission for the establishment of the Reunion University Hospital.

"The wave is still rising and we are not far from sorting out patients in intensive care," he added.

The omicron variant is now the majority, but if the Delta variant only represents 7% of contaminations, "nearly 80% of patients in intensive care are still under the Delta variant in recent days", according to a press release from the prefecture.

A positivity rate of more than 35%

Despite the activation of a White Plan on January 12 and the arrival on January 20 of reinforcements from Metropolitan France, two doctors and six nurses, the hospital staff do not envisage a rapid improvement in the situation.

Outside hospitals, long queues form every day in front of city doctors' offices, pharmacies and screening centres.

"152,000 tests are now carried out each week" and "the positivity rate has increased (in one week) from 30% to 36.6%", the Regional Health Agency said on Tuesday.

More than 180,000 people have been infected with the virus since the start of the epidemic in March 2020 in Reunion and 500 patients have died.

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