Paris hospitals will be swamped within 48 hours
A spike in coronavirus patients means hospitals in and around Paris will reach saturation point within 48 hours, the top of the French Hospital Federation said on Friday, with the peak not expected until April.
Paris and its own suburbs now take into account over 25 % of the 29,000 confirmed coronavirus infections in French hospitals, with almost 1,300 now in intensive care. The death toll nationwide as of Thursday evening stood at 1,696.
"We will plainly need assist in the Ile-de-France (Greater Paris region) because what happened in the east is coming here," Frederic Valletoux, the federation's president told BFM TV.
He was discussing the Grand Est region, where in fact the first major cluster took hold in France and where hospitals are already overwhelmed, with the army helping to transfer some critically ill patients to other cities."We are at the limit of our capacities in 24 or 48 hours. We will have to show real solidarity between regions, hospitals and improve the amounts of patient transfers."
Officials in the Paris area have already been scrambling to find more intensive care beds, ventilators and medical staff and spread the load of patients over the capital and its own wider suburbs.
President Emmanuel Macron imposed on Mar 17 a lockdown to slow the spread of the virus, but doctors say they expect a wave of cases in a few days after the government pressed ahead with local elections and thousands of individuals mingled in parks and streets before they were confined at home.
"If we let hospitals cope independently, and let every territory that has been taken by the epidemic cope alone, then we shall head towards a catastrophe," Valletoux said.
