Will the Alpes-Maritimes have the right to territorialized measures?
Judging the health situation in the department "particularly worrying" on Thursday at a press conference, Olivier Véran, the Minister of Health, announced that he would go there on Saturday.
Confronted with the British variant, the department displays bad figures.
A record incidence rate
The incidence rate is at a record level: 587 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the latest figures from Public Health France, running from February 9 to February 15.
In the Nice Côte d'Azur Metropolis, which brings together Nice and the 48 closest municipalities, it even exceeds 750 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, ie three times the maximum alert threshold set at 250. The positivity rate is there. by 10.3% (compared to 6% nationally).
The Alpes-Maritimes department is the department with the highest incidence rate in metropolitan France, ahead of Bouches-du-Rhône (340 cases per 100,000 inhabitants) and Var (287).
Follow behind the Moselle (283), which is also worrying due to the massive presence of the South African variant, and the Pas-de-Calais (268).
Only Mayotte, reconfined at the beginning of February, has a higher incidence rate than the Alpes-Maritimes with, over the same period, almost 900 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
By comparison, the incidence rate at the national level is around 190.
The incidence rate in the Alpes-Maritimes department had exceeded the maximum alert threshold in mid-December, without ever falling below it since.
Everything has accelerated in recent days: the incidence rate has jumped from 466 cases per 100,000 inhabitants on February 8 to almost 590 a week later.
Over the same period, it went from 571 to 751 for the metropolis of Nice.
Very strong hospital pressure
The number of people hospitalized in the department also reached records, without comparison with the first wave, in March and April.
As of February 18, according to figures from Public Health France, more than 700 people were hospitalized for Covid-19 in the Alpes-Maritimes department, including 115 in an intensive care unit (94% of intensive care beds are occupied).
As of January 1, 553 people were hospitalized, 63 of them in an intensive care unit.
At the height of the first wave, in mid-April in the department, there were around 280 hospitalizations and up to 87 patients in intensive care.
"We have twice increased our resuscitation capacities but we are still nearing the saturation of our beds", alerted Parisian Carole Ichai, head of the intensive care unit at the CHU de Nice.
And sound the alarm: "If the epidemic does not calm down, we will be in difficulty.
"
On the front of hospital deaths, the health situation in the Alpes-Maritimes is no better.
More than 60 deaths are to be deplored in the past seven days due to Covid-19.
This figure climbed to 70 between February 2 and 8.
Since the start of the year, in the department, 377 people have died of Covid-19 against 601 over the whole of 2020.
In recent weeks, to unload hospitals in the Alpes-Maritimes, several transfers have been organized to hospitals in other neighboring departments.
Three patients from the Alpes-Maritimes were transferred to hospitals in neighboring departments.
Two others, from the Nice University Hospital, had been transported to Vannes (Morbihan).
But that is not enough: "We had to deprogram non-Covid operations, which we did not want to do", confesses Carole Ichai.
How to explain it?
According to figures from Public Health France, unveiled Thursday by Olivier Véran, 30 to 50% of new contaminations in the department of Alpes-Maritimes are due to the British variant, which is less than in the neighboring department of Bouches-du-Rhône - but where the incidence rate is lower - where the British variant is now the majority.
The Brazilian and South African variants represented less than 1% of positive tests.
Olivier Véran reported on Thursday that the presence of variants did not always mean an outbreak of cases.
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Christian Estrosi, during the Nice Metropolitan Council on February 10, pointed the finger at tourists who came to Nice and its surroundings to spend holidays.
Although having issued a decree to ban seasonal rentals from February 6 to 20, it was canceled by the Nice Administrative Court, a decision confirmed Tuesday by the Council of State.
"When we reserve a house for six people and we stay there for fifteen and we invite all the friends from the house next door, we know what is happening", lamented the mayor (LR) from Nice.
Olivier Guérin, geriatrician at the University Hospital of Nice, just returned to the Scientific Council, admits to the Parisian that it is "difficult" to understand this increase in cases.
"We can imagine that with a mixing of the large population with the holidays and the tourist attractiveness of Nice, we have recovered the English variant more quickly and that it now has an impact on the incidence rate", explains- he, however, at the Parisian.
And the scientist pointed out that the elderly, more affected by Covid-19, are much more numerous in the department and in Nice than elsewhere.
"There are important British clusters, the airport which is one of the most important in France, the proximity of the border: it is a set of factors", explains Carole Ichai.
New measures?
After a visit to the Nice hospital, Olivier Véran will hold a press conference on Saturday.
Will he announce new measures?
Mystery.
Going under the same conditions in Moselle, last weekend, the minister had finally decided not to take any new measures.
New figures concerning the health situation in the department must be communicated on Saturday, on the sidelines of this visit, indicates this Friday to the Parisian the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of the Provence-Alpes Côte d'Azur region.
"I expect Minister Olivier Véran to make strong announcements to us to curb the virus," tweeted Charles Ange Ginesy, president of the Alpes-Maritimes departmental council on Friday.
And the elected official to deplore a "vaccination rate in the Alpes-Maritimes" still "insufficient".
"Our departmental vaccination centers are only used at 10% of their capacity," he later added.
Olivier Guérin also calls for a "vaccine boost", as there has been the right Moselle with additional doses.
"The goal is to vaccinate as many people as possible because we know that, from the first dose, there is a start of protection", explains the geriatrician.
And the professor recalled that the Alpes-Maritimes department to exceed the European alert threshold, set at 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants: “The recommendations, in these cases, is that travel is avoided.
"