The Dunkirk hospital in the grip of concern with the wave of Covid-19 variant which falls on the inhabitants.
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Denis Charlet / AFP
They no longer speak of "wave" but of "tide": faced with the surge of the English variant of Covid-19, caregivers at the Dunkirk hospital are holding out thanks to transfers to other hospitals, but are worried about 'submersion if the "slackening" continues.
"We are clearly no longer on a wave, we are on what we can call a tide with coefficients beyond what we have been able to know", summarizes Dr Christophe Couturier, the emergency manager, whose the service colonized pediatric emergencies to cope with the influx of Covid patients.
Permanent saturation of available beds
Of the sixty Covid-19 patients hospitalized in this hospital, including 10 in intensive care, more than 60% are carriers of the English variant, a proportion which distinguishes Dunkirk from the rest of the national territory.
Doctors fear that the proportion will soon reach 100%.
If it does not give more serious symptoms than the "classic" Covid and is treated in the same way, this variant "is transmitted very quickly: you meet someone who is a carrier of the virus and the next day you are contagious and positive, ”warns the hospital's medical officer, Isabelle Durand-Joly.
Hardened by almost a year of pandemic, the caregivers of the Dunkirk hospital know better how to take care of patients but must manage a permanent saturation of the available beds, occupied by patients a little younger than in previous phases.
Transfer of 45 patients
"We have transferred 45 patients to intensive care services since February 1, which represents three months of transfers in more usual time", identifies the interim director of the CH, Justine Leibig, stressing however that at this stage, no operation did not have to be deprogrammed.
The patients transferred are for the moment to other establishments in Nord-Pas-de-Calais but the caregivers see the moment arriving with apprehension, "in a maximum of 15 days" according to Dr Durand-Joly, where these hospitals are going. also end up saturated.
The doctor points out that the incidence rate, which reached 658 cases per 100,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the week in the agglomeration of Dunkirk, is also rising in the region of Saint-Omer.
Family epidemic foci
The strategy to be adopted in the face of the epidemic outbreak gave rise to a pass of arms between the mayor of Dunkirk and the prefecture.
Patrice Vergriete had requested the closure of schools a week before the holidays.
The prefect decided to simply shift the inputs and outputs in the primary and put the secondary “in mixed mode” (on site / remotely).
Doctors and nurses note, for their part, a decline in vigilance in the private sphere, which results in the formation of many family epidemic outbreaks, parents and grandparents sometimes finding themselves hospitalized.
A controversy has also arisen concerning a possible “underground carnival” following an interview, in
La Voix du Nord
, with the head of Samu 59, Patrick Goldstein.
“We all know the love the Dunkirk people have for this carnival and the tragedy it represents not being able to do it.
Maybe they are doing it differently?
», He explains, pointing to the concomitance between the situation in Dunkirk and the carnival period.
This Thursday and Friday, the Regional Health Agency must conduct an emergency free screening campaign without an appointment.
It also decided to allocate 2,400 doses of Moderna vaccine, "from the regional security stock", to the urban community of Dunkirk and to the Hauts-de-Flandre community of municipalities "to protect the most vulnerable against the British variant. ".
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