Coronavirus death toll rises in France as army prepares to ease pressure on hospitals

[Vergennes]

French health authorities gave the latest update on the coronavirus epidemic on Tuesday while the army is poised to intervene to ease pressure on hospitals in the east that are struggling to cope with the number of patients in a critical condition.

French health authorities on Tuesday said that 27 more people had died over the last 24 hours from the coronavirus in the country, bringing the total death toll in France to 175 people.

There are now 7,730 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country, France's top health official Jerome Salomon told reporters, a jump of over 1,000 on the day earlier.

His comments came as France entered the first day of a lockdown ordered by President Emmanuel Macron which orders people to stay at home and prohibits all non-essential movements.

Salomon said of those infected, 2,579 people were currently hospitalised including 699 in intensive care. Seven percent of those who have died are aged under 65.

"We are progressively moving to a general epidemic over the territory" of France, he said, urging people to "stay at home" and keep contacts to a minimum.

One of the worst affected parts of the country is the eastern département of Hauts-Rhin, where health chiefs say hospital's are overrun with insufficient intensive care beds and ventilators for critical Covid-19 patients.

On Tuesday patients began to be airlifted out of the Emile Muller hospital in Mulhouse to other hospitals around France in order to ease the pressure.

In an address to the nation on Monday French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the army would be sent in to help hospitals in the Haut-Rhin.

The military will fly out more patients to other parts of France on Wednesday and an army hospital will be constructed to ease pressure on the hospital in Mulhouse.

The make-shift army hospital will house around 30 intensive care beds.

"All reinforcements are welcome because the situation had become untenable in Mulhouse," said Professor Eric Maury, president of the French-speaking intensive care society (SRLF).

https://www.thelocal.fr/20200317/coronairus-death-toll-rises-in-france-as-military-s

 

[UKBengali]

Good luck to France in the fight against Coronavirus.

 

[Constantin84]

At least 2 months of economic,social and epidemiological pain will hit Europe. Stay safe everyone and may God help us!

 

[F-22Raptor]

The world is seeing a once in a century level global pandemic. History is not going to be kind to China or the CCP. This is not something that will be forgotten in a year.

 

[UKBengali]

The world is seeing a once in a century level global pandemic. History is not going to be kind to China or the CCP. This is not something that will be forgotten in a year.

This is probably caused by the Chinese habit of eating "exotic" animals but there is no proof as of yet.

I think this is not the time or place to be laying blame as there is a dire worldwide emergency going on and everyone needs to work together to fight Corona.

 

[Vergennes]

Good luck to France in the fight against Coronavirus.

View attachment 614839

At least 2 months of economic,social and epidemiological pain will hit Europe. Stay safe everyone and may God help us!

What do you guys think of the strategy the UK adopted to cope with the virus ?

Anyway guys,stay safe you and your relatives!

 

[F-22Raptor]

This is probably caused by the Chinese habit of eating "exotic" animals but there is no proof as of yet.

I think this is not the time or place to be laying blame as there is a dire worldwide emergency going on and everyone needs to work together to fight Corona.

All evidence points to China, and the CCP absolutely needs to be exposed for their coverup. They screwed up big time, and it won’t be forgotten.

 

[Constantin84]

What do you guys think of the strategy the UK adopted to cope with the virus ?

Anyway guys,stay safe you and your relatives!

It's wrong ofcourse, we're still heading for the inevitable shutdown but they allowed the virus to spread.

 

[UKBengali]

All evidence points to China, and the CCP absolutely needs to be exposed for their coverup. They screwed up big time, and it won’t be forgotten.

I agree that the world will bring China to book after this pandemic is hopefully soon over and finally beaten, if it is proved their wet markets were responsible and there was a cover-up after that initially.
Simply you do not put the safety of the whole human species at risk to indulge in weird eating habits. Imagine a virus with the infectious of Corona but the "kill-rate" of Ebola was actually released - billions may have eventually died!

Anyway the focus now should be on how to work together to fight this deadly disease. China has both the expertise and industrial might to provide personnel and equipment in the fight and they have already sent help to Iran, Iraq and Italy. They should help elsewhere as well if they are able to.

It's wrong ofcourse, we're still heading for the inevitable shutdown but they allowed the virus to spread.

@Vergennes

They seem to be led rather than leading.

Public and companies were already practicing social distancing before the government started to advise people to do it.

Schools will almost certainly be shut by end of this week or next.

However it seems the government is finally starting to get it and have put UK industry on "war footing" and so it looks like with the extra 1 month UK has over Italy, this may just be enough time to not allow the health service to be overwhelmed - as long as the correct measures are taken now as seems likely to reduce spread of the infection as much as possible.

 

[F-22Raptor]

I agree that the world will bring China to book after this pandemic is hopefully soon over and finally beaten, if it is proved their wet markets were responsible and there was a cover-up after that initially.
Simply you do not put the safety of the whole human species at risk to indulge in weird eating habits. Imagine a virus with the infectious of Corona but the "kill-rate" of Ebola was actually released - billions may have eventually died!

Anyway the focus now should be on how to work together to fight this deadly disease. China has both the expertise and industrial might to provide personnel and equipment in the fight and they have already sent help to Iran, Iraq and Italy. They should help elsewhere as well if they are able to.




@Vergennes

They seem to be led rather than leading.

Public and companies were already practicing social distancing before the government started to advise people to do it.

Schools will almost certainly be shut by end of this week or next.

However it seems the government is finally starting to get it and have put UK industry on "war footing" and so it looks like with the extra 1 month UK has over Italy, this may just be enough time to not allow the health service to be overwhelmed - as long as the correct measures are taken now as seems likely to reduce spread of the infection as much as possible.

China absolutely should be helping because the worse this pandemic gets, the worse it damages China in the eyes of the world. Their wet markets are bad enough, but the coverup? Criminal. This will damage China for years, if not decades.

 

[mourning sage]

Honestl guy, China must be held accountable for unleashing this on the world. Had the Chinese govt acted in mid December, situation could have been much better.

They suppressed and overlooked it. The entire world is suffering because of this dog eating nation.

Didnt think i would say this but Trump is right when he calls it China Virus.

China absolutely should be helping because the worse this pandemic gets, the worse it damages China in the eyes of the world. Their wet markets are bad enough, but the coverup? Criminal. This will damage China for years, if not decades.

 

[antonius123]

I agree that the world will bring China to book after this pandemic is hopefully soon over and finally beaten, if it is proved their wet markets were responsible and there was a cover-up after that initially.
Simply you do not put the safety of the whole human species at risk to indulge in weird eating habits. Imagine a virus with the infectious of Corona but the "kill-rate" of Ebola was actually released - billions may have eventually died!

Anyway the focus now should be on how to work together to fight this deadly disease. China has both the expertise and industrial might to provide personnel and equipment in the fight and they have already sent help to Iran, Iraq and Italy. They should help elsewhere as well if they are able to.

Western propaganda is silly, how come accident like virus outbreak from market to be held accountable? it is accident.
While bringing virus from US or other country to China is not to be held accountable?

Honestl guy, China must be held accountable for unleashing this on the world. Had the Chinese govt acted in mid December, situation could have been much better.

They suppressed and overlooked it. The entire world is suffering because of this dog eating nation.

Didnt think i would say this but Trump is right when he calls it China Virus.

What kind of action that you think will guarantee to change the situation?

 

[manga]

The world is seeing a once in a century level global pandemic. History is not going to be kind to China or the CCP. This is not something that will be forgotten in a year.

World should collectively sanction china and make them repay for the damages, like germany was made to after WW2.
Make china another north korea.

 

[UKBengali]

World should collectively sanction china and make them repay for the damages, like germany was made to after WW2.
Make china another north korea.

I think this is going far too far even if China was both responsible for the outbreak and any cover-up.

When the world(together with China) has beaten this virus for good, then of course a thorough investigation needs to be launched as to whether China was the source with their wet markets and also whether there was a cover up afterwards which would be far worse for the Chinese.

China has banned the wet markets and we shall NEVER see them ever again in China as the CCP will never allow it. We need to go further and make sure that wet markets are banned all over the world. These places are just inviting another epidemic to happen in the future.

If it turns out that China had covered up the incident(far worse than having "wet markets" that may have caused the outbreak) then the Chinese are culpable for the human and economic losses. Morally they have an obligation to compensate those countries like Iran and Italy that have suffered badly and any others that are still to suffer severely. China is a rich country and should be able to at least make some financial amends.

China cannot hope to deal with the rest of the world as business as usual unless there is full transparency in this horrible episode.

 

[Vergennes]

The French army has started evacuating critical coronavirus patients from eastern France to the military hospitals of Laveran (Marseille) and Sainte-Anne (Toulon) in southern France to help ease the strain on hospitals in the east of the country.

They were being transferred on A330 MRTT.

Army helicopters have also been mobilized to transfer patients to other hospitals.