Elisabeth Borne renewed on Tuesday before the end of the year holidays her call for vaccination and the wearing of a mask in the face of the triple Covid-flu-bronchiolitis epidemic, which makes the situation particularly “tense” in hospitals. “We are facing a difficult situation. And with the holidays, this situation is even more tense” in the face of three “overlapping” epidemics, of bronchiolitis, Covid and influenza, “which is particularly hard this year”, a recalled the Prime Minister after participating in a steering meeting of the Ile-de-France Regional Health Agency.
“All of this puts very strong pressure on our health system, on our health establishments, on all the health professionals who, once again, find themselves on the front line in the face of a much larger than usual influx of people in the emergency room and on calls to the Samu”, which are up by 20 to 30%, underlined Ms. Borne, expressing the “support” and the “solidarity” of the government to the nursing staff.
“We all have a role to play”
In “responsibility”, “to help these caregivers, we all have a role to play” with barrier gestures, she continued, inviting us to wear the mask “as soon as we are in an enclosed space where we are numerous”, and to be vaccinated against the flu and the Covid, while “we have to meet up with the family” for the holidays.
At his side, the Minister of Health was “delighted, with regard to city medicine, that the main doctors’ unions did not call a strike between Christmas and New Year”. François Braun was to hold a meeting by videoconference early Tuesday evening on the “mobilization of health actors during the end-of-year holiday period” with the national representatives of the professionals concerned, his entourage told AFP.
white planes
Asked about the possibility of triggering “white plans” to recall staff to hospitals, the Prime Minister clarified that during this meeting at the ARS, everyone was “aware (…) of the fact that caregivers also needed to rest” and that “it is really within each establishment that the situation must be assessed”.
Faced with this triple epidemic, the Committee for monitoring and anticipating health risks (Covars) recommended on Monday to “amplify as quickly as possible” barrier gestures and vaccination, without pronouncing for or against an obligation to wear the mask in closed places.