ANALYSIS
"We have before us a crisis, an epidemic that is coming. We will have to face it at best." Here are the words of Emmanuel Macron Wednesday morning during an exchange with the doctors of the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, where the first French victim of the coronavirus died. And the jump in the French balance sheet from 18 to 38 cases confirmed in 24 hours seems to confirm that the coming days will be decisive for knowing the gravity of this future epidemic of Covid-19, which is taking on the appearance of a pandemic, while it now affects about forty countries.
"A pre-epidemic phase"
"The virus is currently circulating in France, it is a certainty. We are in a pre-epidemic phase", confides an infectious disease specialist at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris at the microphone of Europe 1. "This is not no longer a matter of time, "says another infectious disease specialist. The crucial question is whether there will be an increase in the number of independent coronaviruses in the coming days, like what happened in the Oise.
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Towards an Italian quarantine zone?
"When we have three separate outbreaks with several patients who have had no contact with infected people returning from a risk area, then we can consider that we are in an epidemic," said a virologist. But that will not change anything in the care of the sick: they will have to wear a mask, they will have to be isolated, either at home or at the hospital. And in terms of choosing containment on a larger scale, set up a quarantine zone in a city or region, as is currently the case in Italy. It will be a political decision.