With 45,000 infections per day, Emmanuel Macron loses control of the pandemic

Emmanuel Macron loses control of the pandemic in France. With days of 40,000 to 45,000 cases, doctors encourage him to change strategy and not to be forced to decide, in less than two weeks, who lives and who dies in intensive care in French hospitals.

In a column published in the Sunday newspaper and in The world they evoke “a catastrophic medical situation”. They say they are ready to “create a patient organization to save as many lives as possible”.

“In the next 15 days” – say the doctors in their request – we already know that our capacity to take charge he will be overwhelmed ”.

Forty medical directors of the Paris public health system (AP-HP) warned over the weekend that they face a “Medical disaster”, because the intensive care beds are exhausted. They prepare to choose the patients to be saved, evoking the fateful term of “triage”, which makes the party in power shudder. This is what happened in Bergamo a year ago when Italy was surprised by the Covid pandemic. There are fewer political excuses for this to happen a year later.

“It’s an Airbus A320 that crashes every day. Is it legitimate for a country like France to accept this? “Asks François Salachas, neurologist at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris. Daily cases exceed 40,000 and continue to increase.

Sick transfers

Hospitals transport their patients to other areas in helicopters or medical trains to decompress therapy. Due to the variants and their rapid mutations, patients stay longer in intensive care than before.

“For 15 days, we felt a general tension that we had not felt since the fall,” said Yohan Saynac, clinician in Pantin, in Seine-Saint Denis, 5 minutes from Paris.

Another phenomenon is pollution in schools and high schools. The government refuses to close them, except that it has now decided that if there is a case, the school must be closed immediately. The Eugène Delacroix high school in Sainte Denis has 20 suspended classes and there are over 3,000 closed classes in the country.

The decision not to close schools is at the heart of government. Many families are not sufficiently digitized or cannot help their children at school with Zoom, they do not have internet or mobile phones and they lose out on learning. At the same time three meals are delivered to French schools, which reduce the budgets of the most vulnerable families.

Doctors are noticing more and more young people infected with mild forms. But infected adults say their children had symptoms last week, according to Dr Serge Smadja.

“I have parents hospitalized together, whose children go to the same class,” explains the doctor.

A stubborn president

President Macron does not want to change course nor deepen the containment even further and close it like last year in the first wave. At least immediately. On Wednesday, before Easter, there will be a new Health Advocacy Council.

So far telecommuting is mandatory, cafes, restaurants, breweries, museums and cinemas are closed as well as non-essential shops and businesses. The curfew has been extended to 7 p.m. before the time change. Travel between regions is prohibited, only pharmacies and supermarkets are open.

Entering France from abroad is practically impossible if the 12 conditions are not met imposed by the government as conditions of entry. This is the death of a loved one or an extremely serious situation, in a certificate signed by the attending physicians, translated and stamped by the respective embassy.

Many passengers are left behind because they do not comply with the regulations. The dramas take place at the doors leading to the planes, where they require documentation. But airports are ghostly scenes, without passengers, without your open businesses. The image of desolation and global isolation The planes fly almost empty, with 30 or 50 passengers.

Germany placed France on “high risk” alert on Friday because its internal situation was complicated, although Merkel apologized and canceled the Easter lockdown. It is only a matter of hours or days before the United Kingdom continues with its red card, but Macron believes that these strict containment measures, imposed by Germany or Italy, copy his strategy, which in his opinion is successful.

Saturation

“Let’s hit the wall“Professor Catherine Hill, dean of French epidemiologists, warned.” We are already saturated and it has become totally unsustainable. We can no longer accept non-Covid patients. It’s crazy. “Professor Hill told Radio France Info that the French President’s time-saving policy is nothing less than a” strategy of death “.

Psychologists and psychiatrists disagree with epidemiologists. Their they worry about the wave of suicides, anxiety, domestic violence, sleep problems of the population facing childbirth. They tend not to be silent in the face of the emotional devastation caused by being locked away.

The worsening of the crisis is serious enough to change the character of the next French elections and delay economic reopening until the middle of the year, inflicting another quarter of the economic damage.

Macron’s political survival is no longer guaranteed in the next presidential elections. Those around him are extremely concerned that the figure of xenophobic Marine Le Pen is growing in the midst of the pandemic.

Macron has before him an extremely difficult equation. You have to make a political decision in the face of overwhelming intensive therapies, the society that no longer tolerates confinement and economic rationality in the face of the pandemic and the advice of scientists.

The government is divided. Prime Minister Jean Castex and Minister of Health Olivier Véran are prone to an epidemic and health turn. But the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire defends the interests of the economy. Macron, a former investment banker, listens.

“There is no difference between Olivier Véran and Emmanuel Macron”, they say to the Eliseo palace. “Each minister exposes the problems of his sector and the field information” they assure.

Macron cannot hide his vulnerability to this third wave of Covid in France. The South African and Brazilian variants are advancing in the Grand Est and Ile de France and the north of the country is seriously affected by the British mutation. These are the changes that have provoked this new crisis.

The Head of State insists on the fact that the cost-benefit calculation no longer justifies depriving people of their freedoms. Any action must be weighed against the growing psychological costs and economic damage. He enjoyed a rebound in the polls with these arguments.

The Élysée already knew, according to the reports of the regional prefect, that the consent of the French public for intermittent closures was being broken. Compliance could not be assured.

Macron imposed a 7 p.m. curfew. A policy that concentrates purchases in a short time after work, and which tries to get by with partial measures and technocratic tinkering, but Easter will be another litmus test in this third wave which scares France. Closed containment in the face of the worsening of cases and the real threat to the health system should not be thrown.

Paris, correspondent

PB