“40% of the homeless in Paris have been infected with the Covid”.
This shocking sentence was pronounced by Jean-François Delfraissy, President of the Scientific Council, this Friday at the microphone of RMC-BFM.
This proportion is even higher when looking at collective accommodation, as evidenced by the survey conducted by Médecins sans frontières (MSF), Epicenter and the Institut Pasteur.
The results of this survey are edifying.
That the virus accentuates inequalities, we have known for a long time, but this is the first time in France and even in Europe that it is quantified.
Between 23 and 62% of positive cases in emergency accommodation centers, from 18 to 35% in food distribution sites, and between 82 and 94% in workers' homes.
While in Ile-de-France, the average rate for the general population was 8.82% after the first wave, in May, according to Public Health France.
This survey was carried out at the end of June with 818 people, in food distribution sites, two workers' homes and ten emergency accommodation centers, in Paris, in Val-d'Oise and in Seine-Saint-Denis. .
A blood test was used to tell whether people had been infected with the Covid virus, whether or not they had symptoms.
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These proportions do not surprise the Samu Social de Paris which also carried out a study with the infectious and tropical diseases department of the Bichat hospital, on four places, struck by clusters.
“66% of the 222 people were HIV-positive for Covid,” reveals Armelle Pasquet-Cadre, director of the medical center at Samu Social in Paris and infectious disease specialist.
“This unfortunately confirms what we thought from the start,” reacts Luc Ginot, doctor and director of public health, at the Ile-de-France regional agency.
“This situation concerns us all,” he adds, “because in no country does the virus stop at a population, you can receive the virus by going to buy your bread as by delivering a pizza to your home.
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611 mobile teams have crisscrossed Ile-de-France in accommodation centers, hostels, etc. since the start of the health crisis.
To date, four Covid centers are open with more than 200 places, which have accommodated 1,200 people.
"Relief" centers to reduce contamination rates and 4,600 additional emergency accommodation places, mobilized by the regional prefecture ...
"We must not create new sources of contamination"
So much for the observation.
But what strategy to pursue when a "tide" of Covid cases is feared in Ile-de-France and the State must open new places as part of the cold plan on November 1?
New gymnasiums, without possible isolation?
“The emergency devices that allow people without accommodation to temporarily shelter should not help create new sources of contamination,” warns Corinne Torre, head of mission in France for MSF, who is concerned. is open at the Ministry of Health this week.
"We will ask that in the event of an evacuation of a camp, people are first tested before being sent to accommodation centers", specifies Anne Souyris, Assistant in charge of Health in Paris.
The City of Paris is preparing a list of proposals that it will make to the government in ten days.
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“Throughout the winter, hotels will remain empty, the conference rooms will not be rented… as much use them for emergency accommodation!
», Suggests Léa Filoche, deputy in charge of Solidarity and social affairs at the mayor of Paris.
The demand is urgent.
Every evening, nearly 800 people in Paris and 400 in Seine-Saint-Denis, who call 115, sometimes with very young children, sleep outside for lack of places.
Even more than last year.
“It's cataclysmic!
alert Christine Laconde, general manager of Samu Social de Paris.
We have never had such a high number of accommodation, nearly 50,000 people lodged in hotels in Ile-de-France.
Without the Orsec housing plan, with the mobilization of everyone, donors, elected officials… which would make it possible to provide housing, we will not free up accommodation places.
"And with the health crisis, they will not be able to find refuge in the hospital this winter", insists Gérard Barbier, president of Interlogement 93.
“For them”: the solidarity movement to cook and deliver meals to the homeless oneself