JThursday, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, assured: “We have passed the peak of the rebound” of the Covid-19 pandemic, despite an average of 140,000 to 150,000 new cases recorded each day. On Friday, during its weekly press briefing, Public Health France was more cautious. Asked whether the peak of the rebound had been reached, the health agency estimated that “we cannot answer affirmatively to this question of having reached the peak of the rebound of the epidemic to date”.
In a press release, Public Health France stresses that changes in incidence and screening rates will have to be interpreted with caution in the coming weeks, due to the increasingly frequent use of self-tests, not counted “when they do not subject to confirmation by antigenic test or RT-PCR”.
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A reproduction rate greater than 1
In addition, the circulation of the virus remains “sustained”, with a reproduction rate always greater than 1. children, the trend is to be confirmed in the coming weeks, ”says the health agency. In mainland France, the incidence rate seemed to stabilize in Brittany, in the Grand Est and in New Aquitaine the week of March 28 to April 3, but increased further in the other regions.
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During its press briefing, Public Health France said it was monitoring “in particular the evolution of the dynamics of the epidemic among the oldest people”, whose hospitalization rate has increased. The increase in the number of hospital admissions has not so far been reflected in the intensive care units, which treat the most serious forms of the disease and where the number of patients seems to have stabilized.
“In the current context of high circulation of Sars-CoV2 and influenza viruses as well as their impact on the healthcare system and on the hospital, the application of barrier gestures is essential”, reaffirmed the agency.