Paris (AFP)

At its highest in some metropolises since the start of the school year, the Covid-19 epidemic has spread in recent days on French territory while hospitals are already facing a high patient load in several regions.

Faced with this degradation, calls from doctors to respect barrier gestures and protective measures, especially in the private sphere, are increasing although nearly 20 million inhabitants have already been forced to stay at home from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. since Saturday .

"The situation is serious. We must believe us", launched in a joint text of the doctors and deans of faculties of the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region at the call of the president of the medical commission of establishment of the Civil Hospices of Lyon, Prof. Olivier Claris.

Thus, for the first time since May, the total number of Covid-19 patients currently in intensive care exceeded the 2,000 mark on Monday evening.

It is still far from the peak of the epidemic, when more than 7,000 Covid-19 patients were in shifts.

But more than 150 serious cases enter these peak services every day and they were 278 more on Tuesday.

A number which will "continue to increase in the next two weeks (because of the time between contamination and complications)", warned Mr. Véran.

Between Monday and Tuesday, 163 people died from the Covid.

In the Nord department, at the Hospices Civils de Lyon or in the Paris region, the occupancy rate of resuscitation beds by Covid-19 patients exceeds 50%, according to information collected by AFP.

"We must not forget that there are patients who suffer from something other than Covid and that we must take care of, these are cardiovascular pathologies, major surgery, cancers", warns Philippe Amouyel, professor of public health at the Lille University Hospital.

- "Too fast" -

In the Paris region, where deprogramming began longer ago, with "655 patients in Covid + intensive care this (Tuesday) morning", or 110 more than on Friday, "the figures are now rising very quickly, too quickly", s' The director of ARS Ile-de-France, Aurélien Rousseau, is alarmed.

"We must hope that the night confinement measures have an impact, but it will not be immediate," warns Philippe Amouyel who also calls for individual "responsibility".

"We can control that you do not go out at night, that you put on your mask in the metro or at work ... as much in the private sphere there are no possible controls", he notes.

The government has warned that the curfews, decided in eight metropolises, Paris and the entire Ile-de-France region, will not take effect for two to three weeks.

"I have every confidence in the capacity of the hospital to hold on. The dike is solid. But the wave must not rise too high, it is the objective of the passage to a state of health emergency," a underlined the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, in an interview with Les Echos.

- The elderly -

In the meantime, the contamination figures are soaring.

Thus, the incidence rate, or the number of new cases over seven days per 100,000 inhabitants, exceeds the maximum alert threshold (250) in 22 departments as of October 16, against 10 a week earlier - and only one two weeks earlier. before, according to the data available on Public Health France (SpF).

At its highest in some cities affected by the curfew, such as Saint-Etienne (716), Lille (675), Lyon (582), Grenoble (460), the incidence rate is also on the rise in Clermont-Ferrand (322), Tours (237) or Nantes (194).

In the Strasbourg Eurometropolis, where it is now close to the maximum alert threshold, the incidence rate "doubles every week", notes the ARS du Grand Est.

This deterioration is also observed in those over 65.

The maximum alert threshold, which is 100 new cases per 100,000, has been exceeded in 18 of the 22 metropolitan areas.

"It is in this population that we will have patients who will need to be hospitalized and go to intensive care," said Philippe Amouyel.

© 2020 AFP