While clusters have multiplied in retirement homes in recent weeks, professionals fear the arrival of autumn and seasonal infections, which may complicate the fight against the coronavirus in establishments.
A new cluster was detected on Friday in a nursing home in Aveyron, with around fifty patients.
These several cases of Covid-19, in retirement homes in Gironde or Corsica, have been reported in recent days.
In total, according to figures from the Directorate General of Health, more than 200 epidemic foci are being investigated in the Ephad.
Concern is resuming for the elderly and their families, but retirement homes are now much better equipped than at the start of the year to fight against the spread of the virus.
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Despite the multiplication of epidemic outbreaks in nursing homes, the rules have been the same since deconfinement: visits are permitted, but supervised within specific time slots, in dedicated areas, and rarely in rooms, with wearing a mask, hydroalcoholic gel to entry, see temperature measurement.
The directors of establishments have the possibility of reconfiguring or suspending the visits according to the evolution of the health situation.
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"Fighting against both the Covid and the flu"
If the health authorities want to be reassuring about the situation in retirement homes, on site professionals do not hide their concern with the arrival of frost.
"We are really in the middle of the ford. October is coming, with the first cases of influenza," notes Florence Arnaiz-Maumé at the microphone of Europe, general delegate of Synerpa, the first union of private nursing homes.
"This winter, we are going to have the major difficulty of having to fight against both the Covid and the flu. And this is where we will have to be extremely vigilant."
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This vigilance is also required for exhausted staff, but who are now better equipped and better trained in the event of a new wave of the virus.
Another point of tension concerns the tests: the Ephads complain that the delays are still too long to obtain the results.