Patients with Covid-19 over the age of 75 are less numerous in hospitals and in intensive care units. This phenomenon, observable for four weeks, could be due to the vaccination of this age group.
- In France, a quarter of people over 75 have already received at least one dose of vaccine.
A month ago in France, 5,500 patients with Covid-19 over the age of 75 were hospitalized each week. But that figure dipped to 4,000 in the last week of February, representing a drop of 1,500 weekly cases. This trend is also observed in intensive care units: 412 entries from February 22 to 28, against 509 weekly last month. Although these numbers remain high among those over 75, these decreases are positive. But what can they be attributed to?
Improvement among the over 75s and nursing home residents
For many, this drop is due to vaccination. In France, a quarter of people over 75 have already received at least one dose of vaccine. “Everything converges to attribute the benefit of vaccination to the observed decrease in the various indicators in subjects over 75 years of age”, underlines Daniel Levy-Bruhl, head of the respiratory infections unit of the French public health agency, at the microphone of Europe 1. But he immediately warns: “Reducing the risk of hospitalization in those 75 and older is not enough to reverse the general upward trend in the current epidemiology.”
Same observation in the weekly epidemiological point of Public health Francepublished on March 4: “The strain on the hospital system has increased and is likely to worsen in the days to come due to the increase in new confirmed cases. The improvement in epidemiological indicators among the over 75s and nursing home residents reflects the protective effect of the level of vaccination coverage achieved in this population.” Last Thursday, in all, 3,133,478 people had received at least one dose of the vaccine.
The situation remains worrying, in particular because of the variants
Other indicators of the Covid-19 epidemic are not as positive. Currently, in France, 24,765 patients are hospitalized due to coronavirus, including 3,680 in intensive care. Another worrying figure: one in four people hospitalized in Paris is under 40 years old. While waiting for the vaccination of the entire population, we must therefore redouble our efforts and continue to respect the health instructions.
During a visit to Creuse, Prime Minister Jean Castex affirmed that the government was going “put the package on vaccination” in March and April. The variants that circulate on the territory are also in question: “we have a month, a month and a half, two very sensitive months, he continued. This variant risks leading us back, I don’t know, maybe to reconfine”. During a press conference held on Thursday March 4, Jean Castex estimated that the English variant of the coronavirus represented six out of ten new cases in France. In the weekly epidemiological point of Public Health France, published the same day, it was indicated that the proportion of English variants was greater than 50% in 57 metropolitan departments and that the South African and Brazilian variants were above 10%. in 9 departments.
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