ICU shortage in France as Belgium urges Covid-positive doctors to keep working



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coronavirus-data-explorer

Covid-19 cases per capita during the last month.

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/

THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE are imposing stricter Covid-19 restrictions to stop a surge in cases that is putting pressure on health services.

As in Ireland, much of the concern centers on ICU beds and whether hospitals can cope with the surge in cases during the winter months.

For reference below, Ireland’s 14-day incidence per 100,000 is currently at 300.1 and deaths per 100,000 people in the last two weeks is 1.2.

Belgium

14-day incidence per 100,000: 1,390.9

Deaths in 14 days per 100,000: 5.8

Belgium suffered one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks per capita in Europe earlier this year and now, during the second wave of the virus, it is again among the worst.

Hospital capacity in the country of 11.5 million people is being overwhelmed and intensive care beds are becoming increasingly scarce.

An intensive care doctor in the city of Liege told the Washington Post that doctors who tested positive for Covid-19 have been told to return to work if they have no symptoms, such is the demand.

“Liege is now probably the worst affected region in the world. We have many affected doctors and nurses. But, starting this week, positive cases were asked to return to work if they were asymptomatic, ”Philippe Devos told the newspaper.

The European Union has reduced meetings of experts and senior officials as Brussels faces one of the highest rates of Covid-19 infection in the world.

Throughout the pandemic, only Peru has registered a higher number of deaths per population. Peru has registered 103 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Belgium with 92, then Spain and Bolivia with 74.

Czech Republic

14-day incidence per 100,000: 1,379.8

Deaths in 14 days per 100,000: 12.3

The EU member state of 10.7 million people has recorded more than 260,000 cases and more than 2,300 deaths since the March outbreak.

The country had one of the lowest cases during the first wave of the pandemic, but now records about 15,000 new cases a day.

It now leads the EU in terms of deaths per 100,000 inhabitants during the last two weeks.

Paste Image-91660

Source: Google

The Czech government said yesterday that it would impose an overnight curfew as the country tries to stop the spread of the virus.

The Czech army has built a 500-bed reserve field hospital and medical aid has been pouring in from abroad, including ventilators from the European Commission, as well as from EU peers and others.

The country has been under partial lockdown since last week, but Health Minister Roman Prymula said the restrictions had “a negligible impact.”

“We still can’t see the decline we were expecting these days,” he said.

France

14-day incidence per 100.00: 629.4

Deaths in 14 days per 100,000: 3.3

Yesterday, France reported 258 new deaths from Covid-19 and a net increase of 186 admissions to intensive care.

That brought the total number of people in intensive care to 2,761, nearly half the country’s total capacity of 5,800.

Some hospitals have been forced to start transferring patients to less crowded facilities and tighter restrictions are looming.

Earlier this month, French authorities imposed a curfew that now requires around 46 million people, two-thirds of the population, to be home by 9 p.m., as the number of daily virus cases explodes.

Media reports say that President Emmanuel Macron, who held a crisis meeting with ministers today, could extend curfew hours, possibly with a total lockdown on weekends, or order selective closures for the regions. most affected.

Within Europe, only France and Spain have registered more than a million cases of Covid-19 and on Sunday France registered 52,010 coronavirus infections.

“The outbreak is out of control,” infectious disease specialist Gilles Pialoux of the Tenon hospital in Paris told BFM television.

He urged the government to adopt “a drastic measure, call it a blockade” for the entire country, despite the economic cost.

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Slovenia

14-day incidence per 100,000: 732.8

Deaths in 14 days per 100,000: 2.1

Like some of its neighbors, Slovenia escaped the worst of the first wave of the pandemic in the spring, but has been severely hit by the second.

Slovenia, a country of two million people, registered a record number of cases on Saturday of 1,967 and yesterday of 1,111.

As the situation continues to deteriorate, Slovenians will not be allowed to leave their municipalities of origin as of today.

Under a partial closure that is now in place, non-essential kindergartens, schools, universities and stores are closed. A curfew was also imposed last week.

“The number of new cases continues to grow, therefore we are implementing additional measures from our plan,” Prime Minister Janez Jansa tweeted on Sunday.

Germany

14-day incidence per 100,000: 144.3

Deaths in 14 days per 100,000: 0.6

Cases in Germany are lower compared to all the countries mentioned above, but there is also concern in the most populous country in the EU.

The number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care in Germany has risen from just under 400 in early October to 1,470 on Tuesday.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to hold crisis talks tomorrow with the leaders of Germany’s 16 states, where she is expected to warn of a terrible winter ahead as the number of cases rises to record highs and hospital beds fall. fill.

Under Germany’s federal system, individual states have the final say on what restrictions to impose, and some less-affected regions are likely to rage at the measures that will cause the most economic pain.

Germany coped with the first wave of coronavirus relatively well at the beginning of the year, but the numbers have risen rapidly in recent weeks, as they have across the continent.

The number of new daily cases now regularly crosses the 10,000 mark, with more than 11,400 new infections reported yesterday.

– With report by © – AFP 2020



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