In this rain of numbers, we sometimes get lost.
While it was thought that the number of contaminations approached 50,000 each day, it would actually be much higher.
Even twice as high, a sign that the second wave is worse than expected.
"Around 100,000", estimated on Wednesday Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the scientific council, in charge of advising the government during the Covid-19 crisis.
The day after the reconfinement measures, announced by Emmanuel Macron, this time it was the Minister of Health, in person, who advanced a figure that we did not know, at the microphone of France Info.
When asked how many French people carry the virus, Olivier Véran replied: “Probably a million.
"
READ ALSO>
Go from 40,000 cases to 5,000 new cases per day, yes, but in how long?
How is this estimate obtained?
Knowing that the number of new patients per day is estimated between 40,000 to 50,000 and that they remain ill for ten days, we arrive at around 400,000 to 500,000. Except that, as Professor Delfraissy has shown, we do not identify not all positive cases.
According to the Ministry of Health we contacted, one in two is not detected.
Why ?
Asymptomatic people will not be tested since they do not know they are infected when others do not take the test, even if they are feverish.
This means that this figure must be multiplied by two, so 800,000 to 1 million.
"It's an estimate, an extrapolation," we are told in the corridors of the ministry.
At present, there is no precise indicator for how many people are infected.
Nevertheless, this number calls out and still proves the scale of the epidemic.
Will this number increase further?
No, said Olivier Véran.
“At the rate things are going, with the confinement that has been pronounced, we hope on the contrary to lower the number of new contaminations, that's the whole principle.
"