It is a symbolic threshold: the bar of a million confirmed cases of sick people from Covid-19 and that of the 50,000 dead were exceeded during the night of April 2 to 3. Barely four months after the start of the epidemic in the city of Wuhan in China.
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This number of cases is obviously much lower than the actual number of patients, because they are only people diagnosed using tests, except in China where are considered as confirmed cases all patients whose symptoms and images are clearly suggestive of Covid-19. A study published in the journal Science in early March showed that more than 8 out of 10 cases had not been counted at the start of the epidemic. More recently, the latest report from the modeling team at Imperial College, London, mentioned the figure of 3% of the French population who would already have been contaminated by this new coronavirus. This represents no less than 2 million people for a single country!
The World Health Organization waited until March 11 to declare that the pandemic threshold had been reached. All continents are now affected. And with the exception of certain countries in Southeast Asia, such as South Korea and Singapore, which were able to quickly deploy a massive testing strategy coupled with the isolation of positive cases, no country seems genuinely prepared to take the shock.
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First country in number of patients with more than 220,000 confirmed cases, the United States is preparing to live particularly difficult days and to reach a very high level of deaths. President Trump spoke of the figure of 200,000 dead, but said he could consider himself happy if he stopped there.
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In Europe, the epidemic started in February in Italy. The country is, still today, the most deadly affected with nearly 14,000 victims. The number of new infections per day has however been decreasing since March 28, giving hope that the epidemic peak has passed.
Spain is not far behind with more than 10,000 deaths recorded and more than 110,000 confirmed cases. In France, the peak of the epidemic is expected in the coming days. On April 2, the death toll rose to more than 4,500, for more than 26,000 people hospitalized, and nearly 60,000 patients screened. For the first time, the Director General of Health Jérôme Salomon has revealed the number of coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes: it has risen to "at least 884 deaths" according to "very partial" figures, and more than 14,600 "confirmed" cases or possible ”.
Most European countries seem to follow the same epidemic trajectory with lags of a few days. Germany has thus passed the 1,000 death mark.
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Africa does not seem to be spared either. The number of patients identified remains relatively low for the moment on the continent as a whole, but is also growing exponentially.
Most countries have put in place containment measures, thereby limiting the spread of the virus. Time-saving measures, which in countries with developed healthcare systems, limit the shock of the epidemic peak. However, these measures do not protect against a rebound effect and a return to the epidemic once the first peak has passed. China has just placed several medium-sized cities in quarantine after detecting new cases of Covid-19 there. The country however seemed to have taken the measure of the epidemic, more than a month ago, by limiting its number of infections barely above 80,000 cases and its number of deaths around 3000. The country is, since then, accused by several administrations (including the United States) of having lied about his figures and hiding the extent of the disease.
