While all eyes are on Reunion, where the intensive care services are saturated and where the curfew has been brought forward to 6 p.m., the neighboring island of Mayotte, 1,400 km away in the Indian Ocean, has just completed a month of strict confinement (schools closed) and must finally see the end of the tunnel on Saturday March 13.
"People are relieved by thinking that the hardest part is behind us, but we remain one of the departments where the virus circulates the most, with an incidence rate of 391 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, proclaims Dominique Voynet, now director. of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Mayotte.
It is true that the indicators are improving, because there were still 900 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in mid-February and the decline continues.
We currently have 20 people in intensive care, which brings us closer to the initial capacity of 16 intensive care beds, after having had to go up to 37 beds and carry out medical evacuations to Reunion Island.
"
As with the big neighbor, it is the South African variant that caused the sudden heat wave and encourages vigilance, details the former minister: "We experienced our first cases of Covid-19 from the second wave around. January 10, and 10 days later, it was berezina in all villages and age groups.
We do not yet know what curfew measures will accompany the deconfinement.
We must be vigilant during large gatherings on Friday in mosques
(Editor's note: 95% of Mahorais are Muslims)
, for beach parties, the
wanted (a traditional barbecue)
, for weddings, even if the season is ending, and during the opening of shops and markets, which will become very important as Ramadan approaches, which will begin on April 12.
"
In Martinique, relative calm
Seven time zones and 12,000 km away, in Lamentin, Martinique, the contrast is striking.
Joël, a human resources manager in his thirties, relishes the relative epidemic calm of his department as much as the 29 ° C on the thermometer this weekend: "It is more at home that you have to ask how It's okay !
Yesterday, I went to the restaurant until midnight, my football training continues.
The only thing that really changes is that the bars that don't serve food are closed.
From Saturday February 13th to Wednesday February 17th, a lot of people did carnival and I expected there to be an explosion of cases, but so far it is not.
"
The local incidence rate is currently 35 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and with only 15.4% occupancy of intensive care beds, the situation is enviable, even when viewed very closely, in Guadeloupe.
Links with the neighboring island were limited to compelling reasons in mid-February.
With an incidence rate of 116 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and a positivity rate of 9.3%, the epidemic is experiencing a "marked acceleration" according to the local prefect, who implemented a series of binding measures as of this date. weekends: curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., closing of the exhibition halls, then, from Monday, closing of the sports halls.
Strict rules which, added to an economic crisis hitting the island hard, led several thousand demonstrators in the streets of Pointe-à-Pitre on Saturday to demand, at the call of eleven unions, the end of the "kidnapping" health and "hiring for all".
In Guyana, a clear improvement
The third overseas department bathed by the Atlantic Ocean, Guyana, has started a reverse dynamic after an outbreak in early January.
“The situation was more complicated there,” explains Joël, who spent several years in Guyana and maintains close ties with his former employer there.
The curfew has just passed from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. and my friends there are relieved.
»Bars and restaurants reopened and close at 10:30 pm.
A very clear improvement, while 16 resuscitation beds were occupied on February 2, 3 more than the normal capacity of the department in this area.
Despite the 700 km border with Brazil, the first four cases of variants were only announced on February 13 among travelers returning from… Dubai.
The French in the Pacific have had to face, since this weekend, a double scourge, both pandemic and meteorological.
After the very violent winds of tropical cyclone Niran which swept their archipelago on Saturday, causing heavy material damage, the inhabitants of New Caledonia woke up this Sunday with a second bad news: nine first cases of Covid-19 were detected and strict confinement of two weeks was immediately decreed in this French territory, one of the few on the planet so far spared by the pandemic with 58 positive cases in one year and no deaths.
The new cases identified this weekend were the result of research undertaken after the discovery, the day before, of the first indigenous case in the archipelago of Wallis-and-Futuna, another French archipelago located 2,200 km further to the is.
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VIDEO. New Caledonia: residents discover the damage after the cyclone
The diversity of situations explains the planning of measures by local authorities, more or less harshly than in Metropolitan France.
“The rules are often the same, which is sometimes inappropriate, nuance Dominique Voynet.
We coordinate our efforts between the five general managers of the overseas ARS (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Réunion, Guyana and Mayotte) to achieve a singularity.
We don't want a free pass, but adaptations.
For example, for certain reserves of products or equipment, one cannot reason at three weeks, but at ten weeks since it is necessary to take into account the air breaks and the irregularities of order.
"
These constraints partly explain the slow start of the vaccination campaign in the overseas departments and communities.
The 2% mark for the first dose injected is approaching, while the national rate is 5.1%.
