In the heart of summer, the Covid-19 virus reminds us. Far from having been eradicated, it is causing a moderate increase in the number of cases in France, in particular during large gatherings such as the Bayonne celebrations (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), which brought together 1.3 million visitors from 26 to July 30. “We went from 20% positive cases the week before the holidays, to 35% the following week in the south of Landes and in the Bayonne conurbation, and we are around 35 to 40% positive cases this week”explains the president of the Aquitaine laboratories Inovie-Axbio, Sébastien Boucher.
The resurgence of the epidemic, possibly linked to the emergence of a new variant, also concerns the United Kingdom, the United States and Japan, among others – insofar as the surveillance systems for the virus, which have become very gaps, allow to apprehend it. “Public authorities, all over the world, have lowered their guard vis-à-vis the surveillance of the Covidregrets Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health in Geneva. We are currently unable to produce reliable estimates of incidence, hospitalizations and deaths as we no longer test”or hardly any more.
In France, the mainstay of Covid-19 surveillance was suspended on 1er July: the famous SI-Dep – for integrated screening and prevention service – based on the results of RT-PCR tests and antigen tests. No more the litany of the number of daily cases, the rate of screening and positivity… The monitoring of the epidemic now draws on various sources: data on use of SOS Médecins associations or general practitioners of the Sentinelles network, for city care , and those of the use of hospital emergencies (Oscour network), as well as mortality indicators.
Twenty cases per 100,000 inhabitants
And here’s what that data tells us. “The incidence of Covid-19 cases with respiratory signs seen in general medicine consultation has been increasing for three weeks”, pointed to Public Health France (SPF) on August 7, specifying that this incidence “remains at a low level”. Over the week of July 31 to August 6, it was thus estimated at 20 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, or 13,404 new cases (margin of uncertainty: 8,708 to 18,100), according to the Sentinelles network. Two weeks and a week earlier, respectively, it was 10 cases and 14 cases per 100,000 population. The SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates of patients consulting for an acute respiratory infection were 7%, 35% and 17% among 0-14 year olds, 15-64 year olds and 65 year olds and older, respectively.
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