“The risks of spreading the virus in the population are very low. These words from Agnes Buzyn, then Minister of Health, date from less than two months ago. They seem more than ever over, now or in France now lives in very strict confinement to limit the spread of this new coronavirus.
In the defense of the woman who is still a candidate for mayor of Paris, not many people had anticipated the global scale of this deadly epidemic of the Covid-19 disease. This Sunday, more than 300,000 people were infected in just over two months and more than 10,000 died. Let's redo the film.
"Kind of pneumonia"
The virus appeared in the news in early January. The first international media interested in it evoke a "new" and "mysterious" badly appeared at the end of 2019 in the Chinese city of Wuhan. On January 7 , we publish on our site a first article devoted to what is then described as "a kind of pneumonia". That day, nearly 60 people already fell ill in Wuhan, according to official figures, but none of them died.
Two days later, on January 9 , the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that these patients had been infected by a coronavirus, belonging to the same family as that of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which had caused death. 774 people in 2002/2003. Throughout the month of January, cases are increasing in Wuhan. A first patient dies this same January 9, a second on 14. Then, everything gets carried away: 17 dead on January 22 and more than 100 on 28. Wuhan is placed in quarantine and its inhabitants are prohibited from leaving the city, while two gigantic hospitals emerge from the ground in ... only ten days.
VIDEO. Wuhan hospital construction accelerated
Very quickly, other countries, including those neighboring China, put in place health measures. In Thailand, the first foreign country where a patient was identified ( January 13 ), thermo-scanners detecting abnormal increases in temperature are installed in airports to monitor travelers arriving from China.
January 24, the first cases "imported" in France
And in France, "should we worry about the mysterious Chinese pneumonia? “, One wonders on January 18 . Here too, vigilance is required. On January 20 , Public Health France asked doctors to redirect to the Samu or "a referent infectiologist" any person with respiratory problems who had recently traveled to Wuhan or in contact with a person who fell ill in the Chinese city.
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The first cases on French soil are announced four days later, on January 24 . There are three of them: a young couple from Wuhan, taken care of at the Bichat hospital in Paris, and a French man of Chinese origin aged 48, hospitalized in Bordeaux. The next day, the head of the infectious diseases department of Bichat hospital reassured and deemed "extremely low" the probability of an epidemic in the country.
The following days, many countries experienced their first case: Canada, Australia, Germany, Spain ... At the same time, several cruise ships were prohibited from disembarking.
First death in France on February 15
On January 31 , the first repatriation of 220 French people from Wuhan was organized by the health authorities. They will spend two weeks in isolation in a holiday center, the time to let the incubation period pass. The day before, Minister Agnès Buzyn would have "warned Édouard Philippe that the municipal elections could probably not be held," she said on Monday March 16, after the holding of the first round and the announcement of the postponement of the second. Three other repatriations will follow.
On February 15 , the first patient died in France, in Paris. He is an 80-year-old Chinese tourist. It is even the first death outside of China. But the number of cases on French soil is not racing: “only” 13 on February 25 , more than a month after the first hospitalizations.
That same February 25, a second patient died, this time in the Oise. This professor succumbs to a “massive pulmonary embolism” after having been subjected to the effects of Covid-19. Everyone wonders and worries: who is the zero patient, the one who brought the virus to the department? Suspicions are raised about the military mission which participated in the French repatriation operations in China, and whose units are based in Creil. But the general staff denies and assures that all the sanitary rules were respected.
The “clusters” of Oise, Balme, soon Alsace…
The Oise becomes the main French “cluster”. On February 29 , when 18 cases are identified there, the government announces the transition to stage 2 of the epidemic. Schools are closed and gatherings of more than 1,000 people are banned in six communes in the Oise region as well as in La Balme-de-Sillingy (Haute-Savoie), the other place for gathering patients. The French are getting used to the face of Jérôme Salomon, the Director General of Health, who keeps a detailed record of the victims each evening live on news channels.
VIDEO. Coronavirus: who is Jérôme Salomon?
These first measures may help curb the spread of the virus on French soil, but not stop it. The level of 100 patients is reached on February 29 , that of 1000 on March 9 . And we pass the 100 death mark on March 15 .
Italy, the changeover in Europe
Nothing to do, however, with what is happening on the other side of the Alps. From February 23 , ten Italian municipalities are put in isolation for about two weeks. Italy is the first European country to take such containment measures. On March 4 , all schools must close. Four days later, then the country has 233 dead, several regions in the north of the country are placed in quarantine. Containment became general the next day, March 9 . Spain will follow on March 15 .
The football championships stop in Italy then everywhere in Europe. All the major events, notably sporting or cultural, planned for the coming weeks are, at best, postponed. On March 10 , the WHO officially described the crisis as a "pandemic".
Change of tone
Things are accelerating suddenly in France. Thursday March 12 , three days before the municipal elections in France and as the municipal campaign goes into the background, Emmanuel Macron speaks during a first solemn speech. He announces the closure of all schools. The next day, the maximum authorized threshold for gatherings everywhere in France increases to 100 people. On Saturday March 14 , the transition to stage 3 is formalized, and Edouard Philippe orders the closure of all bars, restaurants, and non-essential shops. But the first round of the municipal elections, the following day, is maintained, which makes many elected officials "distraught".
Monday, March 16 , the measure that everyone felt or hoped, it depends, is announced by the Head of State. Confinement of the whole country, with prohibition to leave home except in certain highly codified cases. The measure, initially scheduled for two weeks, will in all likelihood be extended.
VIDEO. Confinement: in Paris, the first fines fall
Meanwhile, the United States has banned European travelers from entering the country. Even if he refuses to place the entire country under confinement, Donald Trump is now posing as a warlord against what he calls "the Chinese virus". He said, however, on February 27 : "It will disappear, like a miracle". More than 14,600 cases of coronavirus and more than 200 deaths were recorded in the United States on Saturday March 21.
Mea culpa specialists
Many French doctors are also reviewing their speech, acknowledging that they "downplayed" the scale of the epidemic at its inception. "I have probably reassured the French too much," regrets the media Michel Cymes while the country counted on Saturday March 21 , 14,459 people tested positive (1,847 more compared to the previous day). 562 of them died (+ 112 in 24 hours), including a first emergency doctor this Saturday in the Oise.
Europe is becoming the new global focus and "epicenter" of the pandemic, even surpassing Asia in the number of deaths. The leaders of many countries solemnly speak on television to warn of the seriousness of the situation and to announce health measures imposed on the populations. Angela Merkel also made her own speech to German citizens on the evening of March 18 , a first for the Chancellor.
Hope from China…
Confining the population is one thing, curing the sick is another. This is why the large laboratories and the States are embarking on the race for a possible vaccine or treatment.
Meanwhile, things seem to be getting better in China, which still has 3,245 deaths. Last week, the country counted only a few new cases per day, all "imported" from abroad. Something new for more than two months: no new patient has been detected in Wuhan since Thursday. Which makes the WHO say that the management of the city where everything started is a "hope" for the rest of the planet.