Coronavirus: the Oise epicenter of contagion

" We have more passage, that's nothing to say. »At the Main Pharmacy in Crépy-en-Valois, customers fill up on health masks and hydroalcoholic gel. The announcement Wednesday of the death of a college professor because of the coronavirus Covid-19 caused a stir in this small Picardy town of 15,000 inhabitants where the sixty-something man was teaching.

And the announcements of Thursday evening only amplified this concern when the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, announced that among the twenty new cases detected appeared "a grouping of twelve cases" related to the two patients identified Wednesday in the 'Oise, including three "on a military base" in Creil.

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The mystery hangs over the causes of the contamination of the 60-year-old man who died on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, and another 55-year-old man hospitalized in serious condition in Amiens. While waiting for the investigation to identify the source of the infection, classes at Jean de La Fontaine college in Crépy-en-Valois will resume on Thursday, not Monday, after the holidays, the education authority announced on Thursday. Monday and Tuesday, "as a precaution, a medical consultation will be offered to students and staff who have been in contact with this teacher when he could be contagious," said a press release from the education authority and the Regional Health Agency (ARS). ), which specifies that a "distance learning device will be offered to students".

The health authorities of the department are also concerned about the contacts that took place between the patients and the nursing staff during their care. About 200 hospital workers working in the hospitals of Creil and Compiègne, where two coronavirus infected patients stayed this week, are confined to their homes for 14 days as a precautionary measure, said the CGT and the mayor of Compiègne.

Due to this two-week confinement, the Hauts-de-France ARS was forced to close the adult resuscitation service and the continuing care unit of the Creil hospital on Wednesday. The patients who were hospitalized in this intensive care unit were all transferred on Wednesday evening to several hospitals in Hauts-de-France and Île-de-France.

This situation will energize the teams of the mobile emergency and resuscitation structure (SMUR) of Senlis and Compiègne. In the latter city, the containment plan also reduced the capacity of the resuscitation service, reduced from fifteen to six beds due to lack of staff. The two hospitals have launched their white plans, roadmaps aimed at coping with exceptional health situations.

The situation is also weighing on local governments. " We have removed the holding of a municipal council because the mayor is online every ten minutes with one authority or another, and unfortunately he has no hologram " smiles Pierrick White, advisor to the mayor of Creil. In these times of poorly identified epidemic, the city council also saw fit to postpone the meeting in the same room " of 39 elected officials and a hundred spectators ".

Concerns around Beauvais Airport

The two cases identified in the department are not the only source of concern for the authorities, however. In Beauvais, various right mayor Caroline Cayeux fears that the arrival at the local airport of travelers from affected countries, and especially from Italy, will worsen the situation. " We are asking for a sanitary brigade installed at the airport that can warn, guide and inform passengers, " the AFP official said on Thursday, who wants flights from Italy to be " stopped " if the epidemic " had to increase ".

An idea for the moment rejected by the prefect of Oise, Louis le Franc. “ At the airport for the moment, there are no canceled flights. The airline that provides most of the flights is Ryanair, which has not yet considered canceling flights from Italy, "he said at a press conference on Wednesday. According to Michel Peiffer, the chairman of the executive board of Sageb, which operates the airport as a public service delegation, the company " scrupulously applies the recommendations of the ARS ".

“ The measures have been in place for several days and there was no yesterday [Wednesday] during the meeting in the prefecture, of a request to reinforce the current measures, namely for all passengers on their descent, information by posters and flyers which tell them that if they think they are carriers of the disease, they declare it, they are given masks and they are directed to the Samu, "he told AFP.

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At the main pharmacy in Crépy-en-Valois, Mr. Martin notices that sales of masks are exploding but that we still hardly see any covering the faces of the locals. Solicited by a client, he is absent for a few moments, before returning to the conversation. " He asked me if we had chloroquine, " an antimalarial drug that has been rumored for a few days as a cure for the new coronavirus. " This is the first time I've been asked. "