And seven. The new wave of Covid-19, the seventh in France, has therefore become indisputable. Blame it on the BA.5 variant, whose seamless progression over its predecessor BA.2 benefits from both immune escape (immunity gained through vaccinations or previous infection is only partially effective) and greater infectivity.
This seventh wave began in late May in France, following South Africa and Portugal. In just one month, transmissions have accelerated to the point that new Covid cases now affect 1.1% of the French population. Young adults are particularly affected, with 1,500 cases per 100,000 among those aged 20-39, roughly twice the rate among those aged 80 and over. Children under 19 years are more spared (400 cases per 100,000 among 0-9 year olds, 600 among 10-19 year olds), but it is conceivable that they are also less screened than their elders. wider, “The number of cases is probably underestimated due to some fatigue with the declaration of various actors.”assessed the Covid-19 Scientific Council in a conclusion published on June 23.
The upward momentum around us is shared by our main European neighbors. Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are all seeing their cases increase… But it is still France that shows the strongest increase in the epidemic. According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), eighteen of the thirty-three European countries monitored have seen their hospitalizations and/or intensive care admissions for Covid in the past two weeks. Only Portugal, as it was one of the first to hit, already sees that the tide is receding.
“Fragility of human resources in the hospital”.
Experts, however, have been reporting the first signs of a slowdown in the emergence of new cases in France for several days. Can we conclude that we are approaching the peak of this seventh wave? It is difficult to conclude in the absence of scientific models that satisfactorily reflect the increasingly complex reality where the population is largely immunized but in a highly variable manner (vaccination and/or infection, Delta, Omicron or Alpha strains, etc.). “What we can say is that in the absence of prevention policies, a new wave of BA.5 will cause at least millions of infections, thousands of hospitalizations, hundreds of deaths and an unknown number of prolonged Covids.”summarizes Samuel Alizon, CNRS Research Director and member of the Montpellier Infectious Disease Modeling Team.
The only predictions are Simon Kashemes, head of the model teams at the Pasteur Institute. Until July 18, they plan on this horizon about 1,700 hospital admissions per day, compared to a thousand at the moment. In critical care, admissions will rise to about 160 a day, where they are currently about 100.
A prospect that hospitals welcome in mixed fashion. “We are both calm and worriedexplains Pr: Jilali Annan, Head of the Intensive Care Unit (AP-HP) at Garches Raymond-Poincare Hospital, President of the Syndicate of Intensive Care Physicians. Relax, because we now know how to care for these patients. we have the therapeutic arsenal and know-how and Covid is no longer catching us off guard. But we are also worried about the fragility of our human resources in the hospital. In my service, six out of fifteen beds are closed due to lack of staff. If the tide rises too high, we will be overwhelmed because there will be fewer of us, we will have no room to maneuver. Not to mention that our exhausted teams, like everyone else, should take vacations when they are not sick. Number P:r: Anna, it’s not too late to break the tide. “Returning to the obligation to wear a mask in transport and in common working areas. It’s not too restrictive, and we know it’s effective.”.
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Source: Le Figaro
