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Coronavirus: the difficult counting of deaths in France

2020-04-02T04:28:01.852Z


The number of deaths due to Covid-19 is still unknown in the Ehpad.


Why don't we know the exact number of coronavirus deaths in France? Because only deaths in hospitals are accurately recorded. Every evening during his press briefing, Jérôme Salomon, the director general of health, takes care to indicate this. Consequently, his barometer of the epidemic necessarily remains incomplete.

"In hospitals, it's easier because we transmit this information almost in real time to the regional health agency," explains Sébastien Gallien, infectious disease specialist in Créteil (Val-de-Marne). What about the dead at home or in retirement homes? "Counting is more complex, warns the doctor. We can assume that a person dies from Covid-19 without being sure if it has not been tested. "

Statements on "paper forms"

According to him, the figures will come. But not right now. There is no computerized death certificate system. "These are statements on paper forms that are processed by administrative centers on working days, so there is a delay," continues the infectious disease specialist. However, this is what was planned after the terrible heatwave of 2003. "It is unexpected to be in the same situation seventeen years later", is surprised Anne Claude Crémieux, professor of infectious diseases at Saint-Louis hospital in Paris.

Estimating excess mortality will provide more solid data. Some are already reaching us. In the Haut-Rhin, there has been a 38% increase in the number of deaths recorded between March 1 and March 16, 2020 compared to 2019. The increase is 31% in South Corsica, 16% in the Vosges and 14% in the Oise.

PODCAST. How the Oise, the first “home” in France, saw the “wave” arrive

Regarding nursing homes and more generally all of the medico-social establishments, Jérôme Salomon hopes to be able to make public the first consolidated figures this Thursday evening. But here too, the count is difficult. The rule in a retirement home is that when a resident dies, the death is noted by a doctor and the director declares it within 24 hours to the civil registry.

"Covid-19"

“But we do not systematically send this data to regional health agencies (ARS). Faced with the epidemic, the State has therefore set up a national platform so that we can identify them. This system has only existed since Sunday, ”explains Florence Arnaiz-Maumé, general delegate of the national union of establishments and private residences for the elderly (Synerpa).

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From now on, the death certificate must also include, if it is the case, “the mention Covid-19”. "Problem: not all residents are tested and the disease takes a wide variety of forms, sometimes asymptomatic ( Editor's note: no apparent symptoms )," she says. The first expected results will therefore be random. Across the country, Olivier Véran announced to us on Tuesday that 6,500 elderly people were affected by Covid-19, or 1% of residents. And 650 of the 7,000 Ehpad had at least one case. "

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Source: leparis

All life articles on 2020-04-02

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