Paris (AFP)

France is accelerating preparations in view of a peak in the epidemic due to the coronavirus, expected in the "weeks to come".

"The hardest part is ahead of us," warned Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the national ethics committee, on Wednesday morning.

For this specialist in infectious diseases, "the essential question for the coming weeks (will be) the percentage and the number of serious forms" requiring care, especially in intensive care.

"The French strategy is to avoid the Italian scheme, faced with a peak of serious forms without having anticipated it" he added on France Inter, ensuring that "the preparation is being done".

The latest official report shows 33 deaths out of 1,784 confirmed cases, including 86 patients in intensive care. All of the deceased are adults and 23 of them were over 75 years of age.

- Freezing at the polling station -

Four days before the municipal elections, which the government excludes to postpone, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran is considering "measures" to "protect the premises".

Hydroalcoholic gel will be made available "at the entrance and at the exit" of the offices he guaranteed, and "the voters can come, if they wish, with their own pen on the list of signatures" . Some municipalities have already "decided to clean up the polling stations before the election". "We will make sure that this is also the case afterwards, wherever it is necessary," he assured, during a visit to a school in the Ile-de-France where he notably showed children how well wash one's hands.

The contagion is now affecting the government with an infected and quarantined minister at home, Franck Riester (Culture). The Elysée has strengthened the protection measures around the President and his staff, by limiting visits and meetings.

"We are at the very beginning of this epidemic," said Emmanuel Macron while the largest increase, of 372 additional cases in 24 hours, was recorded on Tuesday. "We are living in an exceptional crisis," he insisted.

If "80 to 85% of the forms remain benign, there remain many scientific uncertainties on this virus", raised Pr Solomon "It is not a grippette, it can give serious forms on people not so old as that ".

Professor Delfraissy notes that "the overall mortality of 1% is much higher, around 12%, for people aged 80 or 90": "By protecting them we avoid serious forms, which will be important so that the healthcare system is not too congested. "

The authorities call on volunteers from the health reserve to strengthen the health staff, "including medical students". The College of Physicians and Nurses invited its members to the mobilization, in particular professionals who have been retired for less than five years.

About 1,000 coronavirus tests are performed each day, according to the Ministry of Health and to increase capacity, city laboratories are authorized to perform them.

In addition to closing schools in the most affected regions for two weeks, all gatherings of more than 1,000 people are prohibited in France until April 15, both in the open air and in an enclosed environment.

- "Not a cat" -

Like the PSG-Dortmund Champions League match, disputed without an audience on Wednesday evening, some 450 national-level sports events will be affected by restrictions, according to Sports Minister Roxana Maracineanu.

The Cannes festival remains "reasonably optimistic", but does not exclude a cancellation of its 73rd edition (May 12-23), admits its president Pierre Lescure to Le Figaro.

The world of shows and music fears strangulation: for the association Tous pour la Musique, representing around thirty organizations in the music industry, these measures "put an extremely brutal brake on activities. 'dawn of the most dynamic period on all territories ".

In the localities affected by the virus, like in La Balme in Haute-Savoie, one of the first centers of contamination in France, it is depressed: "We only have cancellations. There is not one cat, "sighs the manager of a hotel that has laid off staff.

© 2020 AFP