"How about we look from another point of view?"
On Tuesday, star presenter Laurent Ruquier invited optimism by posting on his Instagram account the supposed number of Covid-19 survivors for seven countries, including France, the United States and Spain.
According to figures relayed by Laurent Ruquier, gleaned from Mika Denissot, who presents himself on Instagram as a follower of personal development, 99.965% of the French would have survived.
If this figure is close to the number of (known) deaths from Covid-19 reported to the French population, some clarifications should be made.
The opportunity to take stock of the deaths linked to Covid-19 and some questions that have remained unanswered.
Let's start with what we don't know.
If Public Health France communicates the number of deaths from Covid-19 in hospital, social and medico-social establishments (66,282 people between March 19, 2020 and January 5, 2021), no one knows how many died as a result of viruses elsewhere, especially at home.
Compared to 66.7 million French people, this number of deaths in hospitals represents 0.099% of the population, a higher figure but nevertheless close to the 0.035% implied by the post relayed by the host.
What we also know, and which invites us not to minimize this figure, is that Covid-19 causes three times more deaths in hospital than seasonal flu, according to a study conducted by Inserm and the Dijon University Hospital with 130,000 patients hospitalized for the two diseases.
The report takes into account the barrier gestures and social restrictions requested by the government to try to stem the epidemic, measures that have never been imposed so firmly to fight against seasonal flu.
1.5% of people screened
Establishing a percentage of survivors in terms of the number of people infected requires, of course, to know how many people have been infected with Covid-19.
However, we naturally only know the number of people who tested positive.
Data on screening have been published since May 13, 2020. Since then, 2,448,940 people have had their test return positive.
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But the machine to track the virus did not come into full swing until September.
Thus, between September 1, 2020 and January 2, 2021, Santé Publique France recorded 2,325,614 people tested positive.
The national public health agency counted 66,282 deaths in hospitals and nursing homes over the same period, or 1.5% of the number of people screened.
By way of comparison, this number of deaths is equivalent to the population of the city of Bourges.
23.4% of people hospitalized
Regarding hospital careers, the proportion of the number of people who died from Covid-19 among those hospitalized takes on another dimension.
Of the 282,850 carriers of the virus who have pushed through the door of a hospital since March 19, 2020, 23.4% have died in a hospital environment.
Data on the number of people who died in intensive care are not published.
A study by Inserm and AP-HP carried out from February 25 to May 4, 2020 reported 31% of deaths among people placed in intensive care.
A proportion which should be lower during the second wave, in view of the lower mortality observed.
Deaths, but also after-effects
If the figure put forward by Laurent Ruquier is close to the ratio between the number of victims of the coronavirus and the overall population in France, this welcome note of optimism does not mention partially recovered patients, now suffering from after-effects left by the disease. .
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Finally, the pandemic has resulted in ripple deaths.
Operations postponed, consultations canceled or not honored by patients frightened at the idea of seeing Covid-19 being added to their condition ... In 2020, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 additional deaths are estimated for cancerous pathologies alone. compared to the previous year.