Emmanuel Macron should have gone this Tuesday afternoon to Le Creusot for a trip on the nuclear theme but the French president preferred to cancel his visit to devote himself to the crisis ...

Covid-19: Macron brings together two defense councils, toughening measures to wait

The nursing staff of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Robert Ballanger Hospital in Aulnay-sous-Bois, near Paris, take care of a patient with Covid-19, October 26, 2020. REUTERS / Gonzalo Fuentes

Text by: RFI Follow

9 min

Emmanuel Macron should have gone to Le Creusot this Tuesday afternoon for a trip on the nuclear theme, but the French president preferred to cancel his visit to devote himself to the health crisis.

The situation is "very difficult, even critical", according to scientists.

The executive wants to decide quickly.

New announcements are expected before the end of the week.

Publicity

Three days is the time the Head of State gives himself to make new decisions.

The latest alarming figures have pushed Emmanuel Macron to shake up his agenda.

The second wave is violent.

The curfew is not enough

", regrets a framework of the majority.

The meetings will be linked at the top of the state: a defense council this Tuesday morning.

Jean Castex will receive the party leaders and the social partners in the afternoon before a second decisive defense council on Wednesday morning.

Emmanuel Macron is preparing the French for a new turn of the screw.

Several options are on the table: advance the

curfew

?, Local reconfigurations?

Only on weekends?

Everything is possible, repeat the ministers, but the confinement of episode 2 will not completely resemble episode 1 of last March.

“

At the time, we didn't know how to do it.
Today, we know that we can have graduated confinement

, ”forecasts a deputy En Marche.

In this scenario, schools would remain open, the French could continue to work, but social relations would be limited to the strict minimum.

►

Also to listen: Didier Pittet: "Reconfinement is also an extremely effective solution"

Ecocompatible containment

The second wave is therefore brutally raging in France.

The country broke a sad record on Monday, October 26: 52,010 new positive cases for the coronavirus have been recorded in the past 24 hours.

Voices are rising to demand new containment.

Two public health specialists from the Lille University Hospital in the North, signed a column in the

Journal du Dimanche

published on October 25, to propose an "

eco-compatible confinement

The two doctors finally propose to apply the expression “Metro, work, sleep” to the letter.

In other words, limit the social life of the French as much as possible.

Limit it to their employment, education for the youngest, access to transport and essential shops.

Because for Philippe Amouyel, professor of public health at Lille University Hospital, the night curfew measure applied by two thirds of French people is not enough.

“

When people are in the street, when people are in public transport, most of them respect barrier gestures.
The problem is the exchanges that these family homes have with the outside world.
With friends, with relatives, with going out, this is certainly where the virus' leaks are at the origin of the maintenance of the progression.

Professor Amouyel and his colleague are campaigning for this "eco-compatible

confinement

" to be imposed as quickly as possible to break the curve.

They see it as another downtime, brutal but not necessarily long.

“

If we base ourselves on confinement, nearly half of the cases have decreased every week from the third week of its installation.
So over two to three weeks we could already begin this descent.

Another absolute weapon according to the two experts: systematic screening to identify and isolate asymptomatic cases.

Through this forum, they hope that the government will lean for radical measures so that the French can return to normal life as quickly as possible.

Access to healthcare increasingly difficult

Hospitals are the first to suffer from this deterioration in the health situation.

They fear a saturation of intensive care beds and a lack of personnel.

Laon hospital is a small field hospital with 300 beds and 12 intensive care beds.

Laon is a poor little town located in the north of France and a medical desert.

In the hospital, some caregivers are absent because they "gave" too much during the first wave.

And this necessarily has an influence on the provision of healthcare to the population.

We talk about the lack of caregivers but we do not necessarily mention the reasons.

The reasons are there.

We have a lot of stops for musculoskeletal disorders (...) The decisions we make - opening beds, extending a service, doing more and more - it is not without consequences.

Eloi Goullieux, head of the intensive care unit at Laon hospital

Laurence Théault

►

Read also: Covid-19: hospitals in Ile-de-France switch to "reinforced white plan"

Cancer, an indirect victim of Covid-19

Doctors are warning again on the need not to stop the access of patients with cancer to care.

The League against cancer fears a further delay in the care of patients.

Delays in diagnosis, deferred care or interrupted treatment, people with cancer have undergone a real upheaval in their treatment protocol.

Since the lockdown began last March, around 30,000 people with cancer have not been diagnosed.

With the upsurge in new cases of Covid-19 contamination, health professionals are sounding the alarm and calling for mobilization, like Axel Khan, president of the League against cancer: "

First, a general mobilization indeed for that all people who may be suffering from early-stage cancer are diagnosed during a systematic screening or who have noticed worrying signs about themselves, truly consult so that there is no no delay at the start of treatment.
In addition, that there are devices that specifically support people with other diseases, in particular cancer, despite the rise in Covid.
So you have to get used to the Covid by getting used to diagnosing as well, to following people with cancer as well.

For the League Against Cancer, it is important that screenings are maintained and that cancer patients begin and continue their treatment.

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Covid-19: Macron brings together two defense councils, toughening measures to wait

Covid-19: Macron brings together two defense councils, toughening measures to wait

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