Covid-19 in France: a “secret report” overwhelms the government for its management

The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, alongside the Director General of Health, Jérôme Salomon, February 18, 2020. Ludovic MARIN / AFP

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The management of the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic by the French authorities is undermined by a report from the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas).

It is the daily

which reveals it this Wednesday January 4, by specifying from the outset that it took almost two years to obtain the document, carried out between July and October 2020. It must be said that the report drawn up by the four Igas inspectors is damning.

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Unpreparedness, disorganization, “unreadable” decision-making circuit.

The malfunctions noted by the four

 are so numerous that they have made 32 recommendations so that they do not repeat themselves.

First question: was there a delay in ignition at the Ministry of Health?

If the Corruss, the center responsible for responding to health emergencies, was activated upstream, from January 27, the service then has eleven agents and quickly turns out to be undersized.

And it was only on March 10, 24 hours before the designation of Covid-19 as a global pandemic by the WHO, that the decision was made to call in " 

 ", by drawing on agents who were not necessarily competent in the other authorities.

Same question concerning the non-activation of the interministerial cell before March 17, the date of the first confinement.

And once activated, the report points to the total lack of organization and coordination between this cell and Public Health France, an operator outside the ministry, in particular to replenish the stocks of masks which are then sorely lacking for caregivers on the front line.

More broadly, Igas agents point out that the Ministry of Health " 

 ".

Accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people (Ehpad) will simply be forgotten in the crisis center system, and it is only on April 2 that we learn that the Covid has already led to the death of 884 people in the retirement homes.

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