After Aix-Marseille and Paris, four other cities, including Lyon and Lille, will switch Saturday, October 10 to the maximum alert zone, synonymous with new health restrictions to curb the Covid-19 epidemic.
At the same time, the circulation of the virus raises fears of a "
very strong tide
" of patients for hospitals in Ile-de-France.
Thursday evening, the positivity rate of tests (proportion of positive people out of all those tested) continues to increase, to 9.8%, against about 4.5% a month ago.
Between Wednesday and Thursday, more than 18,000 new cases of contamination were detected, as the day before.
More than 1,400 patients were in intensive care (for some 5,000 beds).
With the approach of the All Saints holidays, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran reaffirmed that travel will not be prohibited, while calling on the French to be "extremely careful", especially during family reunions.
In the Paris region, the next few weeks promise to be difficult in hospitals, even if the dynamics do not resemble that of March-April, when the number of patients in intensive care units doubled in just three to four days.
To cope with the influx of new Covid-19 patients and an occupancy rate of intensive care beds which now exceeds 40%, with forecasts at 50%, the director general of the Ile-de-France regional health agency Aurélien Rousseau announced Thursday that he had triggered the "reinforced white plan", synonymous with deprogramming of activities, reallocation of internal staff, or even recall of staff on leave if necessary.
"
A heavy decision
" which "
means that we will take a very strong tide and that we must put all the forces in the battle
", warned Aurélien Rousseau, questioned by AFP.
According to Thursday evening's report, 32,521 people with the coronavirus have died in France since the start of the epidemic.
