Suspended school trips, wedding ceremony reduced to 10 people, public gathering limited to 10, ban on consumption while standing in bars and restaurants ... Faced with the increasingly rapid circulation of the coronavirus on their territory, Marseille and Bordeaux are trying , as Jean Castex had requested, the turn of the screw.
This Monday, a new burst of measures was unveiled by the prefects of these two regions in an atmosphere both heavy and solemn.
The hospital situation is deteriorating.
In Marseille, if the hour is not yet saturated, we are getting closer.
“The situation is very tense.
As I speak to you, there are only 4 beds in intensive care out of 35 ”, explains Jean-Olivier Arnaud, general manager of the AP-HM (Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille).
He now lives at the rate of two "crisis meetings per day" to manage the growing flow of patients.
It "now doubles in less than 8 days", he explains.
In services, despite the hiring this summer of 100 caregivers (nurses, doctors, laboratory assistants…) embolism threatens.
It is indeed necessary to make cohabit all these new patients with the others, all those whose interventions had been postponed during the first wave and who cannot wait any longer.
A "social bubble" around seniors without isolating them
To this is added a "significant absenteeism rate" on the side of caregivers.
“These staff did not get sick in the hospital,” Jean-Olivier Arnaud would like to point out, but by frequenting their close entourage.
Avoid family gatherings, ”the boss of the AP-HM continues to address caregivers.
These dinners, these aperitifs taken with friends, between relatives, are considered by health officials as particularly problematic.
"The virus has found a niche, it targets the 15 to 44 year-old group, then it is from this age group that it will continue its journey, spreading in a puddle, at the option of friendly gatherings" , insists, in Bordeaux, infectious disease specialist Denis Malvy.
Limiting them, or even dissuading them, is what underlies most of the new restrictions.
With one priority: forming a sort of “social bubble” around seniors, without isolating them.
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In New Aquitaine, for example, it will only be possible to visit a nursing home per week and there is no question of being accompanied by a whole host of grandchildren: the number of visitors is limited to two.
In Marseille too, it will be the maximum.
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In both cities, gatherings for festive purposes will now be under close surveillance and controls with possible reinforced verbalization;
in the Gironde capital, there is no longer any question of going for a group picnic in the parks or on the quays: we can go sunbathe there but if the circle of friends includes more than ten people, station at the municipal police.
"Common sense"
Administrative closures of bars and restaurants for non-compliance with barrier gestures in Bordeaux as in Marseille will be much faster.
No more tolerance, they will fall within 24 hours.
And dance parties are now strictly prohibited in the two cities, as are student parties.
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This sounds like a serious warning, especially in the face of the phenomenon of bars which, once the curtain has been lowered, turned into nightclubs.
“Most of these measures are common sense, underlines epidemiologist and public health doctor Martin Blachier.
We have the impression of measuring cups placed end to end, but faced with the coronavirus, there is no magic formula.
All of this is in fact to encourage self-discipline.
This is what allowed the Germans, Canadians and Swedes to display a very low rate of positivity… But we are Latins so we have to do it differently.
"
