While the signs of a slowdown in the epidemic, or even a decline, are appearing on a national scale, the improvement is still timid in our region.
Since the beginning of the week, a wind of optimism has been blowing on the front lines of the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic in France. On Thursday, Jean Castex thus announced a timetable for lifting the restrictions, drawing a brighter horizon: on February 16, if all goes well, life will return to a form of normality, even if most activities will be subject to the vaccination pass.
Does this mean that the Covid-19 seems to be giving up its arms? As of January 21, it is still not obvious, even if the signs of a decline in the epidemic pressure are becoming more and more precise. On Thursday, 425,183 people still tested positive, a seven-day average of 337,192 daily cases. Nationally, the incidence rate still remains very high, currently at 3,245 cases per 100,000 population, according to CovidTracker. The good news, because there is one, is on the side of hospitals.
Bearing does not drop
Effect of the Omicron variant, more contagious but less virulent and now the majority at 96.2%: the curves of hospitalizations and admissions to intensive care are decorrelated. Clearly, there are still more patients in hospitals – 27,931 on Thursday – but those with serious forms are fewer. In intensive care, a decline began on January 12 and it is confirmed day after day: Thursday, there were only 3,842 patients in France, or 15% less than the previous week.
However, this positive trend does not affect the entire territory in a uniform way. If the incidence rate drops in ten departments, it continues to increase, but less rapidly, in the others. Thus, in the seven departments covered by “Sud Ouest”, it has increased further in the last seven days: still strongly in Charente (2,078 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, +40%), Lot-et-Garonne (2,117, +34 %) and Charente-Maritime (2,309, +26.1%), but less pronounced in the most affected departments, such as Pyrénées-Atlantiques (3,495, +14.4%), Gironde (2,967, +15 .8%), the Landes (2,823, +18.4%), but also in the Dordogne (1,956, +12.9%).
Fewer serious cases
This situation results in a still strong hospital pressure. Over the last 7 days, the number of beds occupied by Covid patients has increased sharply in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques (+46.7%), in Charente (+23%), in Charente-Maritime (+16.5%) and in Gironde (+13.1%). But it remained broadly stable elsewhere.
What concerns the authorities above all is the situation of critical care services and on this point, the news is better. If occupancy rates in intensive care remain high (between 52% and 100%, from Gironde to Lot-et-Garonne), the number of patients has been falling for seven days in Landes (-46.6%), in Dordogne (-41.6%) and Charente-Maritime (-20.8%), while it remains stable in Pyrénées-Atlantiques (0%) and Gironde (-2%). On the other hand, it is still increasing in Lot-et-Garonne (+57.1%) and in Charente (+11.1%).