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HEALTH

Coronavirus death toll in France passes 6,500 after elderly care homes report hundreds more fatalities

French health authorities on Friday confirmed that a total of 5,091 people had died in the country's hospitals and at least 1,416 in elderly care homes since the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic. Friday's one-day death toll of 588 in hospitals was its highest to date.

Published: 3 April 2020 20:22 CEST
Coronavirus death toll in France passes 6,500 after elderly care homes report hundreds more fatalities
Photo: AFP

A total of 588 new fatalities in hospitals were recorded in the last 24 hours, said France's Director General of Health Jérôme Salomon on Friday evening – the highest single number of hospital deaths registered since the beginning of the epidemic. 

Salomon said the number of people who had died from the coronavirus in the country's elderly care homes (Ehpads) has risen to 1,416 since the beginning of the epidemic. That number has risen from 884 after additional reports from Ehpad homes across the country. 

Sixty-six percent of France's Ehpad nursing homes have now provided number of coronavirus fatalities in their homes, Salomon said. 

Until as late as Thursday, France's daily coronavirus death tolls only included hospitals fatalities.

The government has stressed that these numbers only gave a partial picture of the total situation given that nursing homes, particularly in the east of the country, had been hard hit by the outbreak of the virus.

The total number of people in intensive care also increased by 263, from 6,399 on Thursday to 6,662 on Friday. That compares to a rise of 382 in Intensive care admissions from Wednesday to Thursday and a rise of 452 from Tuesday to Wednesday.

The number of patients in intensive care is a key indicator for monitoring the progression of the epidemic curve.

Salomon said that while the number of people in intensive care was still growing day by day, the rate of that growth had slowed down this week. 

ANALYSIS: When will the coronavirus epidemic peak in France?

Of the 6,662 intensive care patients, 35 percent were aged less than 60, while 93 people were aged less than 30 years old.

“There has never been so many critically ill people in France at the same time for one illness,” Salomon said.

The large numbers of patients in critical conditions needing intensive care treatment has put massive strain on hospitals, particularly in the worst hit areas in eastern France and the greater Paris Île-de-France region.

At the beginning of the epidemic, France had just 5,000 intensive care beds in total. This has now been increased to 9,000 with a target to increase again to 14,000.

“We have transformed all sectors of the hospital to an intensive care unit,” said Célestin-Alexis Agbessi, a doctor at the Bichat Hospital in the 18th arrondissement in Paris.
 
Hospital Bichat is one of the French hospitals that has seen its capacities overwhelmed by the surge in new coronavirus patiens.

The government has increased efforts to transfer patients between regions to ease pressure on the hardest hit areas. By Friday, 506 people had been transferred to less affected areas in the country and abroad.

IN NUMBERS: The mass evacuation of coronavirus patients from France's overwhelmed hospitals

 

 

 

A total of 27,432 people were hospitalised for the coronavirus on Friday, Salomon said – up from 26,246 on Thursday. 

At the same time, the number of recovered people had risen from 12,428 to 14,008 in one day.

“Stay at home if you want to save lives,” Salomon reiterated, as the government on Friday had reminded the country's inhabitants that extra police roadblocks would be set up to prevent people going on planned Easter trips.

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TRAVEL NEWS

What’s the deal with passport stamping in France?

There are clear guidelines in place about who should have their passport stamped when they enter or leave France - but the letter of the law doesn't always seem to be applied on the ground. Here's what you need to know.

Published: 17 May 2024 14:24 CEST
What's the deal with passport stamping in France?

When you pass through a French border control post, officers will check your passport and – in some cases – stamp the date of your entry or exit of the country onto one of the blank pages in the booklet.

Although the system should be clear and simple, it becomes complicated when conflicting information is given on the ground.

Here’s what the rules say, and whether it’s really a problem if your passport is incorrectly stamped.

Who should be stamped?

The purpose of the date stamps for entry and exit is to calculate how long you have been in France, and therefore whether you have overstayed your allowed time – whether that is the time allowed by a short-stay Schengen visa or the visa-free 90-day allowance that certain non-EU nationals benefit from. 

Those people who are exempt from 90-day restrictions should therefore not have their passports stamped.

EU passport – people who have an EU passport should not have it stamped, because they have the right to unlimited stays due to EU freedom of movement.

Dual nationals – people who have passports of both EU and non-EU countries should not be stamped when they are travelling on their EU passport. However, because the passports of dual nationals are not ‘linked’, those travelling on their non-EU passports will be stamped, unless they have other proof of residency.

READ ALSO What are the rules for dual-nationals travelling in France?

French residents – the passports of non-EU citizens who have a residency permit in France (carte de séjour) should not be stamped, because they have the right to stay in France for as long as their permit is valid.

Visa holders – people who have a long-stay visa or a short-stay visitor visa should not be stamped, because they have the right to stay in France for as long as their visa is valid. 

Tourists/visitors – people making short visits to France who do not have a visa should be stamped, with the stamps keeping track of their 90-day allowance. Visitors from nationalities who do not benefit from the 90-day rule (eg Indians) are also stamped.

Travel practicalities

When crossing a French border, you should present your passport along with other documents – visa or carte de séjour – if relevant. Don’t wait for border guards to ask whether you are a resident.

It should be noted that the carte de séjour is not a travel document and cannot be used to cross borders, not even internal Schengen zone borders. The only valid travel documents for entering France are a passport or national ID card. Any other forms of ID – driving licence, residency card etc – cannot be used for travel purposes.

Border problems

While the rules on stamping are simple in theory, many readers of The Local have reported having their passports incorrectly stamped at the border, and this seems to be a particular problem for non-EU nationals who are resident in France.

Travellers are also often given incorrect information by border guards – for example being told that only holders of the post-Brexit Article 50 TUE carte de séjour are exempt from stamping, that all non-EU nationals must have their passports stamped or that only being married to a French national exempts you from stamping.

None of these are correct.

It’s also sometimes the case that people whose passports should be stamped – tourists, visitors and second-home owners who don’t have a visa – do not receive the stamp. For frequent visitors this can be a problem because it looks as though they have had a long stay in France, due to their exit not being recorded.

The system of stamping itself is also a bit haphazard with stamps scattered throughout the passport book in random order, so border guards sometimes make mistakes and miss an entry or exit stamp and therefore think that people have overstayed when they haven’t.

So how much of a problem actually is it if your passport is wrongly stamped?

It’s one thing to know the rules yourself, it’s quite another to have an argument with a border guard, in French, when a long queue is building behind you. Numerous Local readers have reported feeling that they had no choice but to accept a stamp when an implacable guard insisted upon it.

But is this really a problem?

One thing is clear – if you are a resident of France then you have the right to re-enter, and your proof of residency (visa or carte de séjour) takes precedence over any passport stamps. So it’s not a question of being barred from the country – it can, however, be inconvenient as it might lead to delays at the border while your passport record is queried.

Meanwhile people who did not receive correct exit stamps can be incorrectly told that they have over-stayed and even be liable for a fine. 

Will the new EES passport control system improve this?

Theoretically, the EU’s new Entry & Exit System – which does away with the manual stamping of passports – should get rid of these problems.

However, as we have seen, theory and what actually happens on the ground are two different things.

The EES system, due to come into effect later this year, brings in two main changes – it makes passport checks more secure by adding diometric data such as fingerprints and facial scans and it does away with manual stamping of passports and replaces it with scans which automatically calculate how long people have been in France.

You can read full details of how it works HERE. 

So that should eliminate the problems of unclear stamps, stamps being read wrongly or passports not getting the stamps they need.

Residents in France – carte de séjour and visa holders – are not required to complete EES checks and should have a separate system at ports, airports and railway terminals.

However, at present it’s pretty common for border guards to give incorrect information to non-EU residents who are resident in the EU – let’s hope that they are properly briefed before EES is deployed.

Have you had problems with passports being incorrectly stamped? Please share your experiences in the comments section below

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