Covid-19: the death toll still rising in France, but encouraging signs

The terrible count starts to rise again.

Some 551 people with Covid-19 have died in hospital in the past 24 hours, the highest daily death toll since the start of the second wave of the epidemic and the strain on the healthcare system continues to rise, even though early encouraging signs have emerged regarding the circulation of the virus. 

The total death toll since the start of the epidemic was raised to 40,987 on Monday, announced the Director General of Health, Jérôme Salomon.

The record of deaths recorded in 24 hours in hospital during the first wave of the Covid-19 epidemic was reached on April 6, with 613 deaths. 

Yes, confinement is a test for all French people.

But I remind you that # covid19 is:

1 patient every 2 sec.

1 hospitalization every 30 sec.

1 death every 4 mins.

Let's respect this confinement, let's be united.

The State will protect, and accompany.

- Olivier Véran (@olivierveran) October 31, 2020

"The peak is in front of us"

"The peak of the epidemic is in front of us, the second wave is still progressing", warned the Director General of Health.

But he observed "a slower progression" of the epidemic "everywhere where early braking measures were applied, in particular the curfew". 

"It is encouraging and it encourages us to continue our efforts collectively", he added, at the end of a day marked by the announcement of progress on the front of the search for a vaccine.

The laboratories Pfizer (United States) and BioNTech (Germany) have in fact ensured that their vaccine candidate was 90% "effective" in preventing Covid-19 infections, according to the large-scale phase 3 trial in progress, last step before an application for approval. 

"Beginning of change", "shudder": with heavy words, coated with very careful formulas, health officials had already lit a ray of hope about the circulation of the virus.

All after several days of fog on the number of new daily cases, due to a computer traffic jam. 

Inflection in Île-de-France

Jérôme Salomon announced a total of 1,807,479 Covid-19 cases recorded since the start of the epidemic, an increase of more than 20,000 compared to the total recorded on Sunday, a figure difficult to interpret because of the computer bug. 

"We can speak, in the Île-de-France region, of a beginning of a shift," said Monday the director general of the AP-HP (Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris) Martin Hirsch on France Inter, explaining that "these last three or four days, we rather see about 80 admissions per day (in intensive care)", against 110 "eight days ago" and "rather 400 admissions in hospitalization per day" against 500 a week ago . 

In Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the most affected region in France, contamination seemed to stabilize at a very high level for a few days, according to the director general of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) Jean-Yves Grall. 

But the peak of hospitalizations "is still ahead of us (...) it is not under control everywhere and the days to come are necessarily very complicated", warned Martin Hirsch. 

And the director of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur, Philippe Demester, tempered any excess of optimism: "I am very happy for Île-de-France that he (Martin Hirsch) feels this inflection, as far as we are concerned it is too early to tell (...) we have not yet slowed down growth here ". 

Transfer 

For now, the pressure on hospitals is still increasing, with 4,690 patients affected by Covid-19 in intensive care on Monday, out of a total capacity and all pathologies taken together already increased from 5,000 to 6,400 beds and which should soon increase to 7,500. But this requires the closure of operating theaters and the deprogramming of surgical interventions. 

The number of deaths since the start of the epidemic had passed the 40,000 mark on Saturday. 

This pressure, which is stronger in certain regions, has forced hospitals to transfer patients to other territories in France, and even in Germany.

The Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes is thus considering 200 new transfers of patients in the next two weeks. 

Last week, the Minister of Health had considered that in the hypothesis of a "well respected" confinement, the number of Covid-19 patients would reach a peak of "about 6,000" in intensive care, "a very strong pressure on our hospital system ", but which would then decrease. 

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Olivier Véran has made an appointment by the end of the week or at the beginning of the following one, to "take stock of the containment" and that the government can if necessary announce "additional measures". 

A possible relaxation of containment is hoped for in many sectors before Christmas, first and foremost non-food businesses, restaurants and hotels, which are suffering the full brunt of the re-containment, after that of spring. 

According to the Banque de France, it should cost the French economy 12% of its GDP in November compared to so-called "normal" activity, a decline compared to the spring (31% in April).

The decline in activity should be between 9 and 10% over the whole of 2020. 

The reconfinement threatens in particular the toy sector, which risks being deprived of 770 million euros in sales if the stores cannot reopen before the end of the year holidays, according to a study by the NPD Group published on Monday. 

In addition, from next week, the Ministry of Health will make available to schools a million antigenic tests for staff, said the Ministry of National Education. 

With AFP

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