Public Health France ensures that the number of emergency visits for drowning fell by 12% this summer 2020. A summer report which we must rejoice in… but also be wary of.
- The number of emergency visits for drowning in the summer of 2020 is down 12% compared to 2019 and 2018.
- This good news can be explained by the effects of Covid-19 (closing of swimming pools until the end of June, decline in beach attendance, reduction in the number of tourists) and by the unfavorable weather in June and early July.
- However, the month of August saw an increase in this indicator, probably because of the heat wave, which would have prompted people to go more to water points.
Were the French more careful when swimming? Nothing is less sure. 961 people were taken to the emergency room for drowning between June 1 and September 1, 2020. A figure down 12% compared to the summer of 2018 – with 1,142 cases – and the sunny days of 2019 – accounting for 1,040 such emergencies. Good news that unfortunately must be put into perspective: this decrease is partly due to Covid-19.
The Oscours monitoring network (Organization for coordinated emergency monitoring) observes a reduction in the number of visits to the emergency room for drowning by 27%. However, this decline in accidents would be partly due to the closure of public or private paying swimming pools – such as municipal pools, leisure bases, amusement parks -, private swimming pools for collective use in hotels, holiday residences or campsites, but also to the restriction of access to certain beaches due to the Covid-19 epidemic, thus mechanically avoiding the number of drownings. Similarly, the number of visits to the emergency room for drowning also fell in July by 17%. There, Public Health France recalls that at this same period “the drop in tourist numbers in certain regions, particularly by foreign tourists, has also had an impact on bathing“. To this “Covid” factor is added less favorable weather conditions in terms of temperature and sunshine. Thus, without the temptation to “take a dip”, the risk of drowning is also lower.
However, the number of emergency visits for drowning increased in August by 5%. The reason ? Probably the heat wave. “August 2020 was rated the third hottest August since 1900recalls Public Health France. [Ce qui pourrait se traduire par] an increase in frequentation of bathing places.“
Children and seniors
This change in the number of visits to the emergency room for drowning is to be modulated according to the coast. Regions with beaches with access to a “warm” sea still account for a large number of visits to the emergency room for drowning. New Aquitaine has 168 cases, a stable figure compared to 162 visits in 2019, but less than in 2018 which had 200. Occitania recorded a drop this year, falling below the bar of 200 emergency room registrations, a milestone that she hadn’t crossed in the past two years. Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur also has fewer cases this year, but it remains the region most affected by this scourge with 249 emergency visits. Figures much higher than in the overseas departments which recorded a clear decrease in the number of dramas this year compared to 2019 with only 27 cases.
In the Grand-Est, Centre-Val-de-Loire, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the number of emergency visits is low and continues to fall this year. This decrease is particularly notable in Île-de-France where 19 cases were recorded against 47 in 2019 and 53 in 2018. However, these figures deteriorate slightly in regions that are not used to this phenomenon such as Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (29 cases this summer), in Corsica (29), Hauts-de-France (42) and Brittany (29). Note the bad summer in Pays-de-la-Loire which recorded 45 cases in 2020 against 31 in 2019 and 29 in 2018.
43% of these people in distress in the water are children under 6 years old and 13% are seniors over 65 years old. A stable proportion compared to previous years.
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