Paris (AFP)
The coronavirus made a first victim in the national political landscape with the death of former Minister Patrick Devedjian, a familiar figure of the French swept away by an accelerating epidemic.
Died in the night from Saturday to Sunday at age 75, the man who was now president of the Hauts-de-Seine departmental council had been placed under observation in a department hospital on Wednesday.
Thursday, he said in a tweet to be "affected by the epidemic, therefore able to testify directly to the exceptional work of doctors and all caregivers".
"Tired but stabilized thanks to them, I go back up the hill and send them a very big thank you for their constant help to all the patients," he added.
According to the latest report on Saturday evening, 2,314 people have died in hospital since the start of the epidemic. Of the 37,575 confirmed cases, 17,620 patients are hospitalized - including 4,273 in intensive care - and 6,624 have returned home.
"The first 15 days of April will be even more difficult than the 15 days which have just passed", warned Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Saturday, while the confinement was extended until April 15 in an attempt to interrupt the spread of the coronavirus.
- TGV evacuations -
To relieve hospitals in hard-hit regions, medical evacuations are accelerating again on Sunday, as part of Operation Resilience launched by Emmanuel Macron.
"We must free up beds, it is absolutely necessary to give air to the resuscitation service. We are always in a continuous increase in the number of patients," said the emergency chief of the Metz regional hospital, François Braun .
Two medical TGVs left the Mulhouse and Nancy stations almost simultaneously on Sunday at around 10:45 am, to evacuate a total of 36 patients to New Aquitaine.
These are the most important evacuations carried out since the beginning of the epidemic in France, while the Grand Est is one of the regions most heavily affected (3,777 people hospitalized, including 786 in intensive care, and 757 deaths).
In addition, 40 coronavirus patients who were hospitalized in the intensive care units of Burgundy-Franche-Comté hospitals are being transferred to those of three departments in the Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne region.
Finally, after an initial evacuation of two patients from Metz by military helicopter to Germany on Saturday, a similar operation with two other patients will "probably" be carried out Sunday early in the afternoon, according to François Braun.
"The solution cannot be to multiply the sanitary trains across the country which mobilize material and human resources disproportionate to the number of patients concerned", however, tackled the emergency physicians at Amuf on Saturday, launching "a solemn appeal "to the mobilization of" the whole economy "to win" the health war ".
- Beds, masks, tests -
The emergency room union considers that "the priority today is to immediately increase the number of intensive care beds by mobilizing all of the country's industrial, logistical and human resources by putting a stop to all non-essential activities" .
Increasing the number of intensive care beds is one of the government's objectives, according to the battle plan presented on Saturday in a long press conference which was intended to be educational.
The government plans to increase to 14,000 beds in intensive care against 5,000 at the start of the crisis, and the capacity to test the population will be amplified, reaching 80,000 tests per day in late April.
Faced with the glaring lack of masks, which created controversy, more than a billion protective masks were ordered, notably from China. "A narrow and intensive air bridge between France and China has been set up to facilitate the entry of masks into the territory," said Health Minister Olivier Véran on Saturday.
According to government figures, France produces 8 million masks per week, which makes it essential to import these health materials during the health crisis.
In addition, the situation in nursing homes continues to cause concern, since the elderly are among those most at risk, even if the coronavirus can strike young people, as the death of a 16-year-old girl recalled this week. years.
Mr. Véran wished to go towards "isolation" in a single room for each of their residents.
Four residents have died in the last five days in a nursing home in the Vosges, half of the 116 residents are considered "suspected cases" of contamination by the coronavirus, announced local health authorities and the prefecture.
© 2020 AFP