Paris: extension of the obligation to wear a mask outdoors and facilitation of rapid access to tests

“In fifteen days the number of new cases in Paris has been multiplied by six”, asserts Nicolas Péju, deputy director general of the Regional Health Agency (ARS) of Île-de-France and guest of the morning show of France bleu Paris this Monday. Faced with the runaway of this contamination curve also observed in the inner suburbs, the health manager asks everyone to be extremely careful. “Access to the test is every time you have a doubt, every time you don’t feel well, you have symptoms, now you can have access to the test without an appointment , without prescription, it is reimbursed and therefore you have to get testedhe says. This is also how we will break this trend of the rise in the circulation of the virus.

However, with the summer holidays, some laboratories have seen their workforce drop while demand is increasing. Appointments are less immediate and the queues in front of laboratories carrying out tests without a prescription or an appointment are getting longer. ARS Ile-de-France claims to carry out 150,000 weekly tests. “We have greatly increased our testing capacity, we have increased it by three in two monthshe assures. But the demand for testing has also increased sharply […] it created a tension on the laboratories. This is why we are setting up a platform, operational as of today, dedicated to doctors in order to be able to direct people who urgently need to be tested as a priority. A platform which makes it possible to prioritize people wishing to be tested but which is based on city medicine. According to Nicolas Péju, all doctors need to do is call a telephone platform to be put in touch with laboratories. The latter must then contact the patient suspected of incubating Covid-19 within 24 hours, then quickly send the test results.

Paris on alert

An emergency situation that unfortunately risks becoming more frequent. Since this Friday, Paris has crossed the Covid-19 alert threshold and has more than 60 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. An irresistible increase since mid-July, which despite the alerts of the executive or health authorities, seems difficult to stop. “We are finally witnessing since mid-July a continuous increase in the number of cases but which has been accelerating sharply for, I would say, a fortnight and in particular effectively in Paris and in the inner suburbs with high incidence ratesanalyzes the deputy director general of ARS Ile-de-France. It is an epidemic recovery whose trend is accelerating and that is what should concern us. We are really facing a moment when we see the curve reverse and increase sharply. There is still time to stop it, to break this curve, that is why there must be an awareness of all that it makes act now.

How to stop Covid-19 infections? The health manager recalls the rules to be respected: use of barrier gestures, maintenance of social distancing and regular hand washing. However, this citizen prevention does not seem to be enough, especially in the face of the feeling of invulnerability of a certain part of the population tired of hearing these injunctions. However, in a press release dated August 14, the Paris Police Prefecture extended the areas where wearing a mask is compulsory outdoors. It is no longer just a few streets, but areas or even entire neighborhoods. In other outdoor public spaces, wearing a mask is strongly recommended in the event of a dense population. “If the epidemiological situation were to deteriorate again, wearing a mask could become compulsory throughout the capital. warns the Prefecture of Police. This weekend, she also said she was strengthening her checks in bars, restaurants and gatherings of more than 10 people to ensure that a mask was worn correctly. Measures supported and requested by ARS Ile-De-France. “These measures, which are more obligations, show that there must be an electric shock because at the base of everything, if we want to break this curve, we must follow the recommendations in what are barrier gesturesadds Nicolas Péju. As for wearing a mask, we actually recommended to the Prefect of Police in obvious areas where it is difficult to respect this distancing to make the wearing of a mask compulsory because we were precisely noticing this relaxation. Soon the end of summer and carelessness?