The vanguard
02/27/2020 - 10:14
- Clarín.com
- World
The first mortal victim of French nationality of Covid-19 still poses a mystery, ignoring the route of contagion. It was a 60-year-old man, a teacher at a middle school in the department of Oise, north of Paris, who never traveled to China or any other country considered at risk.
There had been another deceased by the coronavirus in France before, at the beginning of the crisis, but he was an elderly man of Chinese nationality.
The deceased French professor stopped working on February 12. He had been hospitalized for days but was not tested for Covid-19 until Tuesday, when his condition suddenly worsened and he was transferred to a large hospital in the capital, where he died within a few hours.
Macron greets doctors at Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris / AFP
Now the health authorities are trying to find out how they got contacted and with whom they had contact to adopt drastic measures to stop the spread of the pathogen.
It is believed that he was not with students because he became ill when it was the winter break period. The same problem of ignorance about the origin of the infection occurs with another man, 55, also from Oise, who is hospitalized in Amiens in serious condition. It is not known if the two patients were in contact.
It happens that in the town of Beauvais, in Oise, there is an international airport used mostly by the low-cost company Ryanair. It is, therefore, a place of busy passage of people of very diverse backgrounds.
Although 18 cases of coronavirus have already been reached - with two deaths and 12 cures -, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, insisted Wednesday night that "there is no epidemic in France" but only isolated cases .
Premier Edouard Philippe holds a meeting with members of the government, legislators and opposition to discuss the issue of coronavirus./ AFP
The Government, however, tries to prepare the ground for more drastic measures if the situation becomes complicated. That is why he summoned the leaders of all parliamentary parties and the heads of the groups represented in the Matignon palace - headquarters of the prime minister. Véran also announced that the State will make available to doctors and hospitals 15 million protective masks.
The masks are not recommended to the general public, only to those who have been in a place of risk or fall ill.
Some measures taken cause confusion because they seem contradictory. The mayor of Nice, for example, decided to suspend the last day of the city's famous carnival. On the contrary, the Champions match between Olympique de Lyon and Juventus in Turin was maintained, despite the arrival of 3,000 Italian typhosi .
The celebration of the meeting was very criticized by the mayors of the two municipalities of the metropolitan area of Lyon that border the stadium. The ultra-right-wing leader Marine Le Pen and former socialist presidential candidate Ségolène Royal were also dissatisfied.
When defending that the party was maintained, Minister Véran offered inaccurate explanations. He said that in the region of Turin, Piedmont, there were no patients with Covid-19, which is not true . Nor did he take into account that Juventus, the club with the most supporters in Italy, has fans all over the country, including, obviously, risk areas such as Lombardy.
Eusebio Val, correspondent in Paris
