It takes an-ti-ci-per ... The administrative and health authorities of Ile-de-France have put themselves in battle order to prepare the health system for a possible worsening of the situation. But there is no question of prematurely triggering containment or travel limitation measures "which are not justified at this time".
This is the message that Didier Lallement, the Paris police prefect, surrounded by Michel Cadot, regional prefect, the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo and Aurélien Rousseau, director general of the ARS (Regional Health Agency) wanted to pass this Friday evening. Didier Lallement, who spoke with his "zone" prefect cap in charge of steering the fight against the spread of the coronavirus, gave details of the system put in place by all the administrations concerned ... and its rapid ramp-up.
It is organized around a “monitoring and anticipation” cell which now meets twice a day in the premises of the police headquarters. “Above all to quickly bring up information from various sources. This information is the sinews of war to process the first signals as soon as they appear, to identify and block cases of infections, "insisted the prefect Lallement.
"To date, we are not in the epidemic phase," says Aurélien Rousseau, the boss of the ARS. "And we will not be as long as we manage to trace the chains of contamination, identify the cases and isolate them," he continues, stressing that the virus "does not circulate" on national territory. “There are cases of contamination in Paris. And there are going to be others. But our conviction is that we are currently in a position to identify them ”, concludes the director of ARS… without predicting the future.
"We have increased the number of labs doing the tests"
The organization of the Ile-de-France hospital system has in any case already been designed to cope with a possible increase in alert. And 15 million masks have been destocked, primarily for doctors and health personnel. The Parisian hospitals Necker, Bichat and La Pitié-Salpêtrière (which have epidemiology services) are the benchmark establishments where patients infected with covid-19 are treated.
Other so-called “second line” hospitals (all the hospitals in the small and large crowns with an EMS) have also been mobilized to welcome patients if the three reference sites reach saturation point.
"For the moment, recourse to this second line has not been necessary," reassures the ARS, which specifies that patients who suspect an infection should obviously not go to the hospital ... but contact the 15 who will establish the diagnosis and, if necessary, place the patient in solitary confinement pending the results of the tests. "We have increased the number of labs that do them," we tell the ARS, recalling that the clinical picture of suspected infection was revised downwards on Friday.
"500 possible case alerts this Friday"
Until now, it was necessary to return from a risk zone and present an acute respiratory distress to justify a screening. Now only one of these two criteria is enough! "Today alone, we had more than 500 possible case alerts," said Aurélien Rousseau, Friday evening In the morning, his services, those of the prefecture of police and the town hall of Paris had participated in an exercise "In room" of mobilization of means according to different scenario of spread of the virus.
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"Like in a role play. But it's not a game, "said Didier Lallement Friday evening, referring to a very changing situation. “At this stage, there is no reason to cancel major events (note: like the Paris half-marathon this Sunday where 44,000 runners are expected). But it is worth… as I say it, ”concluded the prefect.
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