Faced with distrust and criticism from many French people on the management of the coronavirus epidemic by the executive, the Prime Minister had promised "transparency" on the health situation. A promise he tried to keep with a press conference alongside his Minister of Health Olivier Véran this Saturday. “I am not trying to justify the action of the government. I know that when the time comes, we will learn the lessons of the crisis together. "Said Edouard Philippe.
"The fight is just beginning" . As he had already been able to do by announcing Friday the extension of the confinement at least until April 15, the Prime Minister warned that "the fight has only just begun". "The first fifteen days of April will be difficult, even more difficult than the past fifteen days," said the head of government.
A new assessment of containment measures "at the end of next week". To smooth the curve of the number of admissions to the ICU and limit the peak, the Prime Minister has once again stressed the importance of containment measures. "I will not let anyone say that there was a delay in the containment decision," he said. To judge its effect, we will have to wait a little longer. The "first impacts" of these measures are hoped for next weekend, "said Arnaud Fontanet, epidemiologist at the Pasteur Institute. At that time, "in all transparency, we will draw the consequences", as Édouard Philippe said.
France wants to have 14,000 beds in intensive care. Before the start of the epidemic, hospitals had 5,000 beds in intensive care units. This figure has since been doubled but it is not yet sufficient in the face of the looming wave. The Minister of Health Olivier Véran explained that the government wanted to reach the number of 14,000 beds. This involves, in particular, orders for respirators. "We have placed orders with all producers, including 1,000 additional respirators from Air Liquide," said Oliver Véran.
An order of a billion masks. To deal with the shortage of masks which healthcare workers have to face in particular since the beginning of the epidemic, France places orders from all directions. Over a billion masks have been ordered abroad, mainly from China. And for good reason: national production is struggling to keep up. "We produce eight million masks per week and we consume 40 million per week," summed up Olivier Véran, stressing "that no country in the world is currently facing its demand for masks".
Target 50,000 daily PCR tests in a month . Responding to the request of the Director of WHO to increase the number of tests, Olivier Véran said that France could currently run 12,000 daily newspapers and that the objective was to reach 50,000 PCR tests by the end of April. At the same time, France has already ordered five million of these rapid tests, the minister announced. "They will allow us to increase our screening capacity by 30,000 additional tests per day in April, 60,000 in May and 100,000 in June", with a view to deconfinement.
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"No treatment has yet been formally proven . " Whereas the controversial professor Didier Raoult has just published a new study on a derivative of chloroquine, Olivier Véran declared that at the present time no treatment had not yet proven against Covid-19 "in France in the rest of the world "and" invited patience ":" Research is in full swing, all the laboratories are focused on a treatment against the coronavirus, in particular hydroxychloroquine ". "Thirteen clinical trial projects are underway, a dozen will be approved very quickly," added the Minister of Health.
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