This is a “considerable” figure. The MG France Covid survey in the city unveiled its second component in a press release. Among other figures, that of deaths at home: 9,000 since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic in France.
This figure, unveiled by the general practitioners’ union, is the result of a survey of 2,300 city doctors. The president of MG France, Jacques Battistoni explains to the JDD that this is a first estimate.
He recalls that most of the Covid-19 patients are in the city, and not in the hospital. But with the government’s crisis communication, people no longer dared to go to their GP. That is to say a drop in attendance of 40%. And more difficulties in helping coronavirus patients at home.
Impossible to know
If we know precisely the number of deaths in hospital, and that of Ehpads, deaths at home are more difficult to count. The shortage of tests as well as the scale of the epidemic and the number of deaths make it impossible to test people who have already died. People found dead at home will therefore be “suspected of Covid-19”.
A few days ago, the president of SOS Médecins estimated with Science and the Future than “the 50% increase in home deaths in France has passed“. Between March 22 and April 5 alone, the federation of doctors had counted 253 deaths at home, 54% more than at the same time of the previous year.
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