Mid-November, we're almost there.
4,887 patients with Covid-19 are hospitalized in intensive care this Friday, November 13, according to figures from Public Health France.
Or rather in "critical care", since this also includes, in reality, serious patients in intensive care or under continuous surveillance.
This number represents almost 100% of the initial capacities in resuscitation beds.
A return to a not-so-distant past makes one realize how much more dramatic the health situation due to Covid-19 could have been.
"Whatever we do, nearly 9,000 patients will be in intensive care by mid-November"
Flashback.
On October 28, Emmanuel Macron announces in a speech his decision to reconfine the entire country from two days later.
"At this stage, we know that whatever we do, nearly 9,000 patients will be in intensive care in mid-November, that is to say almost all of the French capacities", indicates the Head of State.
In the sentence just before, he evokes "a second wave which, as we now know, will undoubtedly be harder and more deadly than the first".
In the next one, he insists on the need to “put the brakes on contaminations brutally today”.
Everything therefore indicates that the 9,000 patients he is talking about are indeed Covid-19 patients.
A week later, Thursday 5 November, Olivier Véran speaks at a press conference.
"If we do not sufficiently respect the confinement [entered into force six days earlier, Editor's note], then we will experience a strong risk of saturation at the national level from mid-November with more than 7,000 patients with Covid in intensive care", indicates the Minister of Health
🗣 "If we do not sufficiently respect the confinement, we risk the saturation of intensive care services from mid-November", warns Olivier Véran, Minister of Health.
Follow the live 👇https: //t.co/cEwi3c61QM pic.twitter.com/MMRe3lEGfk
- franceinfo (@franceinfo) November 5, 2020
In the end, mid-November, we are therefore rather close to 5,000. If the trend continues, the peak in the hospital could even be reached next week, said Jean Castex on Thursday in front of the press.
Against all evidence, a "heavy minister" nevertheless indicated this Thursday to the Opinion that there will be "9,000 patients in intensive care" in a few days, taking up the figure put forward by Emmanuel Macron two weeks earlier.
So, were the figures put forward previously too "alarmist"?
Our various interlocutors assure in chorus that it was not forecasts announcing what was going to happen, but simple "projections" making it possible to anticipate the evolution of the situation if no measures were taken.
"We present projections from the work of the Pasteur Institute which allow us to see what we could expect and it is up to all of us to make them lie", justifies a government source.
"Totally far-fetched" to plan too much in advance
It is in fact the Pasteur Institute which, since the start of the school year, has been developing and regularly updating epidemiological models, on which the government then bases itself.
“These are not forecasts, but projections based on the current rate of hospitalizations.
They indicate what can be expected if we stay on the same growth and if nothing changes.
[…] They can help us better anticipate and understand why it is important to slow down the circulation of the virus in the population, by changing our behavior or by putting in place additional control measures, ”explained in October to Parisian Simon Cauchemez, research director at the Institut Pasteur.
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It is precisely the various measures taken in recent weeks, in particular confinement but also the local curfews decreed one or two weeks earlier, which made it possible to reduce the height of the peak expected in mid-November, agree to say doctors. and health authorities.
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VIDEO. Véran: "A second higher and longer wave" in the event of poorly respected confinement
"Frankly, this kind of projection has never inspired me much", confides at the same time Stéphane Gaudry., Since the start of the school year, this professor of intensive care in intensive care at the Avicenne hospital (Bobigny) has been confronted with daily life. to an influx of patients in serious condition.
“We have known since mid-September that there will be an increase in the number of cases and therefore hospitalizations.
Making predictions for a week, we get there.
But beyond that, it's very complicated, ”he adds.
An opinion shared by the renowned epidemiologist Antoine Flahault, who recently told us that “we cannot predict the situation a month and a half in advance”.
“It's totally crazy,” he blurted out.
The unknown number of patients in intensive care
One thing is certain: whatever the number of Covid patients in critical care, it does not represent all.
The authorities have done their utmost to deprogram as little as possible of surgical operations in order to continue to welcome patients with other pathologies and who also require heavy care.
At Avicenna Hospital, for example, "65% of critical care beds are occupied by Covid patients, and the remaining 35% are all permanently full," says Stéphane Gaudry.
On the other hand, at the national level, impossible to have the total number of patients in intensive care.
The Directorate General of Health (DGS) did not respond to our request.
A government source explains that this calculation could be complex from day to day.
However, for several weeks at the end of last spring, in the midst of the downward phase after the first wave of the epidemic, the DGS communicated each evening the total number of patients in intensive care, "including" those with Covid-19.
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Contacted, the Ministry of Health insists on its calls for "caution" and "not to relax our efforts", so that the downward trend observed for several days on new contaminations and the number of reproduction (corresponding to the number means that an infected individual will infect) continues.
And that a peak at 7,000 or even 9,000 Covid patients in intensive care does not occur now ... or later.