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Coronavirus: France sees steep drop in number of hospital patients

France on Wednesday reported 278 new deaths from coronavirus but also announced a steep fall in the number of hospital patients, as the country prepares to gradually ease its lockdown.

Published: 7 May 2020 09:07 CEST

Coronavirus: France sees steep drop in number of hospital patients

AFP

The health ministry said 25,809 people were now confirmed to have died from the virus in hospitals and nursing homes.

Over the past 24 hours, 278 people died from COVID-19, a slight dip from 330 deaths confirmed on Tuesday.

France is due to emerge on May 11 from a lockdown that began in mid-March, with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe due to announce on Thursday how this initial easing will take shape.

Shops will be allowed to open but cafes and restaurants are staying shut. Some schools are also due to open, in a strategy that has caused some controversy.

As well as a decline in death rates on Wednesday, France also reported 283 fewer patients suffering from the coronavirus in intensive care, making a total of 3,147.

Nationwide, there were 23,983 patients in hospital, 792 fewer than the previous day.

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France’s Covid-19 app to be 'put to sleep'

Covid-19 screening in France reaches an important milestone on Friday, June 30th, 2023 – when the TousAntiCovid app is officially ‘put to sleep’.

The app, which was launched in June 2020 as France came out of its first lockdown of the pandemic and has undergone a number of iterations, including as a delivery device for the health pass, will be switched off.

For most people, this anniversary will pass without mention. Few people have consulted the app in recent months, and it has sat dormant on many smartphones since France’s Covid-19 health pass requirement was suspended in March 2022.

Meanwhile, the Système d’Informations de DEPistage (SI-DEP) interface – which has been informing people about their test results since the Spring of 2020 – is also being shut down on June 30th, as per legal requirements.

The SI-DEP shutdown means that it will also be impossible to retrieve Covid test certificates issued before June 30th, should the need arise. All data held by the database will be “destroyed”, officials have said.

It has handled more than 320 million antigen and PCR tests since it was introduced.

This does not mean that testing for Covid-19 has stopped, or is now unnecessary. As reported recently, more than 1,000 deaths a week in Europe are still caused by the virus.

The shutdown of the national information system does not mean that people in France cannot still book an appointment for an antigen test at a pharmacy, or a PCR test at a laboratory. But the number of people going for testing is declining rapidly. In recent days, according to Le Parisien, just 15,000 people in France took a Covid test – the lowest number, it said, since the pandemic started.

Reimbursement rules for testing changed on March 1st, with only certain categories of people – minors, those aged 65 and over, or immunosuppressed patients – covered for the entire cost of testing.

From Friday, only PCR test results will be transmitted to authorities for data purposes, meaning pharmacists that only offer antigen testing will be locked out of the online interface to record test results.

The reason for the shift in priorities is to maintain “minimal epidemiological surveillance”, the Ministry of Health has reportedly told scientists.

As a result test certificates, showing a positive or negative result, will no longer be issued from July 1st. Since February 1st, anyone taking a test has had to give consent to share their data in order to obtain a certificate.

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