Paris (AFP)
France has registered 54 Covid-19 deaths in hospitals in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths in the country to 29,209 since the start of the epidemic, according to a report released Monday by the Directorate General of Health (DGS).
In addition, the number of serious cases of Covid-19, requiring hospitalization in intensive care, continues its slow but regular decline: it fell on Monday to 1,024 people, or 29 less compared to Sunday.
Four regions (Ile-de-France, Grand-Est, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Hauts-de-France) account for 75% of patients hospitalized in intensive care, according to the DGS press release.
With this new count, the number of deaths recorded in hospitals now stands at 18,859.
Regarding deaths in social and medico-social establishments (including nursing homes), the last figures published date back to June 2 (they reported 10,350 deaths) and their next update by Santé Publique France is scheduled for Tuesday.
"Our collective behavior during confinement saved many lives, today it conditions the risk of resumption or not of the epidemic, so let us not relax our efforts," said the DGS.
In addition, the DGS echoes an opinion issued by the High Council for Public Health (HCSP), "on the correct prescription of anti-infectives in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic".
"These new recommendations point out that it is essential to respect the rules for the proper use of antibiotics," explains the DGS.
However "since the beginning of the epidemic a significant increase in the prescription of antibiotics has been observed, while bacterial co-infections are rare", she adds, stressing that the HCSP recalled that "apart from the presence of signs of severity, it is not necessary to prescribe antibiotic therapy, whether preventive or curative, in patients with Covid-19 ".
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