Sunday evening, they celebrated the defeat of PSG; since Wednesday, they must not go out without their mask. The inhabitants of Marseille are now obliged to wear face protection in the public space of the entire Marseille city.
The measure was decided by the prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône due to the resurgence of the Covid-19 epidemic in Bouches-du-Rhône. Restaurants and cafes throughout the department are also due to close their doors every evening at 11 p.m., starting Wednesday.
Here are three infographics to understand how the health situation has gradually deteriorated in recent weeks.
Worsening test indicators
Among the indicators scrutinized daily, the incidence rate and the positivity rate are among the most interesting. Both relate to the number of positive tests. The first refers to the number of cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The second corresponds to the percentage of positive diagnoses compared to the total number of tests carried out over a given period.
By analyzing them over a sliding week (in order to smooth the daily variations), we observe that these two indicators have risen sharply in the Bouches-du-Rhône since the end of July, at a rate much higher than that of the scale national. The incidence rate reached 131.6 from August 16 to 22 against less than 10 a month earlier, according to Public Health France. In Marseille alone, it even climbs to 177 "when it was 33 at the end of July", according to the prefect of Provence-Alpes Côte d'Azur.
The Bouches-du-Rhône even became, on Tuesday, the department with the highest incidence rate in France, ahead of Saint-Martin and Paris. "This development places the department among those whose situation is the most worrying", the prefect alarmed in his press release.
As for the positivity rate, it went back above the national value at the end of July and now reaches 6.3% (3.7% in France).
The oldest are no longer spared
Weekly statistics by age are only provided for each completed week. For the last of which the data are known, that going from August 10 to 16, the incidence rate among 80-89 year olds is 37 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the Bouches-du-Rhône.
Newsletter - Most of the news
Every morning, the news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to enable you to receive our news and commercial offers. Learn more
As with each of the other age groups, this is more than across the country. Above all, three weeks earlier it was only 3, more than twelve times less. This means that, even if young people (often asymptomatic) remain the main vectors of this epidemic recovery, the oldest and therefore the most vulnerable are not spared.
“In Marseille, we had a particularly high penetration rate of the epidemic among the elderly. So we have taken measures that are perhaps more restrictive than elsewhere. It is case by case, it is necessary to harden if it is necessary, […] and to rely on the sense of the responsibilities of the people ”, moreover justified the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, this Wednesday morning on France Inter.
Start of rebound to watch in hospital
If the situation is incomparable with what was experienced during the "wave" in March and April, there is also a tremor in hospital services. The number of new daily intensive care admissions in the Bouches-du-Rhône, most often between 0 and 2 from mid-May to mid-August, reached or exceeded 4 four times in a week. On a weekly average in order to smooth the daily variations, the value is reached on August 25th. The same goes for new hospital admissions, which now stand at 24.
The number of patients hospitalized in intensive care, it rose to 23 on Tuesday, while it did not exceed the value 10 during the first half of August. The rebound is therefore slight, and at low levels (up to 270 patients were hospitalized in intensive care in mid-April), but it calls for vigilance.
If daily admissions continue at this rate, the situation may worsen as hospital discharges will not be able to compensate for them forever. Especially if more and more of these patients are elderly and therefore more at risk of developing severe forms of the disease.