The peculiarity of this wave of Covid-19 is that it is associated with epidemics of influenza and bronchiolitis. What put the hospital under pressure.
Is this the beginning of the end of the ninth epidemic wave of Covid-19 in France? Public Health France identified 70,224 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, a drop of 7% in seven days. As a rolling seven-day average, the number of daily Covid-19 cases was 60,450, down for the second day in a row.
However, Benjamin Davido, infectious disease specialist at the Raymond-Poincare hospital in Garches, does not interpret these figures as a ray of hope for the hospital, in particular because the Covid is not the only disease in circulation.
“This wave is special because it is a triple epidemic”, he underlines with BFMTV.com.
This season is indeed marked by the cohabitation of Covid-19, influenza and bronchiolitis, which puts hospital services under pressure.
Talking about winter respiratory syndromes
According to the weekly report from Public Health France (SPF), published on Wednesday, the flu epidemic has currently spread to all regions of metropolitan France. The last few days have been marked by a continued increase in flu indicators in all age groups and a “sharp increase in hospitalizations” (+117%), notes SPF.
Hospitalizations for bronchiolitis, a potentially serious respiratory infection for babies, reached for their part a level unprecedented for ten years.
Despite a decrease last week in emergency visits and hospitalizations for bronchiolitis, “signing the very probable passage of the peak of the epidemic”, the latter continues “at a high level” in mainland France as well as in Guadeloupe, in Guyana, Martinique and Mayotte, according to the SPF bulletin published on Wednesday.
“What concerns us is that there are still hospitalizations for a lot of flu, Covid and other respiratory infections”, explains to BFMTV.com Benjamin Davido, who calls for being “extremely careful about the reduction contaminations” for the Covid-19.
The infectiologist believes that it is necessary “to communicate on all epidemics at the same time: we must speak, as we did before, of winter respiratory syndromes”.
Watch out for the January recovery
How should we then consider the end of year celebrations, which for many people are moments of family reunions? “Paradoxically, the Christmas holidays will save us,” said Dr. Davido. For this third Christmas under a pandemic, the infectious disease specialist anticipates that families will be “particularly careful”, by being tested before, for example: “it is calculated risk-taking”.
However, things are likely to get tough once the holidays are over. The fifth wave of the Covid-19 epidemic, which began in November 2021 and was driven by the Omicron variant, demonstrated this well. It peaked in January, with the number of daily infections sometimes running into the hundreds of thousands.
Several factors explain this. Back to school is for example a cause of epidemic resumption: the situation of January 2022 was “partly linked to a very active circulation of the virus in primary schools, kindergartens”, according to an opinion of the Scientific Council of January 19.
An energy crisis that does not help
The cold climate is also an element that promotes viral transmission, whatever the virus. “We hope for less winter temperatures to allow more ventilation of the rooms. The best way to protect yourself, beyond barrier gestures, is ventilation”, also recalls Benjamin Davido.
“And there, we tell people to close the windows and put on sweaters to avoid energy waste,” laments the infectious disease specialist.
For the holidays, but also after, Doctor Davido recommends “washing your hands, putting on a mask in crowded transport or stores, perhaps avoiding such and such a lunch or party”. In short: “re-adopt the reflexes we had in 2020 or 2021”. He also cites the vaccination against Covid-19, whose latest recall campaign, launched this fall, is struggling to really get started.
The risk if these measures are not taken? Create a “sustainable epidemic” and “rock the hospital”, warns Benjamin Davido. “We underestimate the psychological impact of this endless day on caregivers,” denounces the infectious disease specialist.
Source: BFM TV
