Three, then seven, then ten this Wednesday morning, 16 in the afternoon and surely more in the days to come ... The number of inhabitants of Haut-Rhin contaminated by the coronavirus is increasing inexorably. Twenty people, from at least two families and their entourage, have now been diagnosed positive in this department, with one case considered worrying. This department is now one of the five sources of contamination - also called clusters - in France.
The first three infected in this area, a mother and two children aged 1 and 5, living in the town of Hésingue, were identified on Sunday. As of the announcement of their hospitalization at the CHU of Strasbourg, the general practitioner Jonathan Peterschmitt, who officiates at Bernwiller, reports having been afraid. "It was ten days since I was tired and I had symptoms, including rhinitis, but which could be associated with any disease," said the Parisian father of four 33 years old.
A gathering of 2000 people
He therefore signals himself to the health authorities, in order to carry out a screening. As with two other family members, the test is positive for the very viral Covid-19. After a short hospital stay in Strasbourg, the 30-year-old returned home on Wednesday and is currently in confinement, with his four children aged one to seven, one of whom was infected, as was his wife. He wants to be reassuring. “We are all fine, the precautions are not directed towards us. Serenity is the order of the day and I am getting better and better every day, ”confides on the phone the father, who says he never had a fever, even at the height of the disease.
As is customary during contamination, the Regional Health Authority (ARS) investigated on Tuesday to quickly determine the identity of all the people called "contact cases" that Jonathan Peterschmitt might have come across , as well as the resident of Hésingue during their incubation period.
The circumstances of this contamination quickly appeared: the doctor, the son of the pastor of the evangelical church of La Porte Ouvert Christian, created in 1966, like the mother, participated in a religious gathering in Bourtzwiller, in the suburb of Mulhouse, between February 17 and 24, 2020. A week of fasting, for which more than 2,000 believers have converged each year for 25 years.
Jonathan Peterschmitt reported his first symptoms of illness the weekend following this meeting. "At the time, the region was not on high alert, there was no suspicion," reports the thirty-something. He does not exclude that some of the participants could have come from northern Italy, where there were more than 2,500 infections and more than 100 deaths on Wednesday.
An impossible investigation
The circumstances of this gathering raise fears of other contaminations. “We were very numerous, in a confined area. There is a platform effect which is annoying for contamination, describes the general practitioner. At the least attended meetings, there were a thousand people, and at the most popular events, almost 2000. "
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It is difficult to determine to date if, during this gathering, members of these two families found themselves in exactly the same place at the same time. But it turns out that they went on the spot several times, between February 17 and 24, according to the Regional Health Authority of Grand Est, contacted by Le Parisien.
The concern also concerns the children present. They were at least 300, gathered in the same rooms, underlines the Agency, which moreover understands the difficulty, even the impossibility of establishing "contact cases". "The community of La Porte Ouvert could not provide us with an exhaustive list of participants, because participation was free and without registration," we are told.
Jonathan Peterschmitt abounds, aware of the rapid spread of the virus: “You imagine, by the time that the ARS carries out a close investigation for each suspected case… The person will already have come into contact with other individuals. Since Tuesday, the prefect of Haut-Rhin, Laurent Touvet, therefore asks the participants in this meeting to make themselves known by phoning 15, if they have symptoms that may suggest the coronavirus.
Members of the doctor's entourage affected?
The young general practitioner is pleased that he has not reopened his medical office in the past week, overwhelmed by heavy fatigue, thus warding off the risk of infecting patients, some of whom are elderly and therefore more vulnerable to the virus.
The spread of the virus did not stop there. Since Monday, the first results of the tests carried out in the entourage of the inhabitants of Hésingue fell: the grandfather, 57 years old, is also sick. A few hours later, his partner was diagnosed positive. This Wednesday, it would be members of the entourage of Jonathan Peterschmitt who would have joined, according to him, the list of contaminated people.
As a precaution, the Haut-Rhin prefecture has closed three schools, in Hésingue and Bernwiller where the infected children were, as well as in Bourtzwiller, where it is managed by the evangelical community. The risk is low, however: these pupils were on school holidays when they were infected and have not yet returned to school.
Jonathan Peterschmitt and his family are patient, confined until the end of their contagion period. "We have a few stocks of food at home, but we will soon have to contact relatives to drop off groceries outside our door, without contacting us," said the doctor. "With four children at home, he slides, amused, there is no risk of being bored ..."
