Covid France: 60% of new cases now being detected
A new ministerial study has found that almost 60% of new cases in France are now being picked up, up from 12% in July
Almost 60% of new Covid-19 infections are now being picked up in France, a huge rise from 12% in July and August, a new study has shown, with an estimated 6.3million people having been infected since March.
Figures published by ministerial statistics research centre la DREES this week showed that “the detection capacity of the system has risen from 12% in June to 31% in July-August, 45% in September-beginning of October, and 59% in mid-October to the end of November”.
The authors of the study also cross-referenced the number of people infected in France during the first wave (4.5% according to blood data), and the number of people hospitalised for Covid-19, and established that 2.7% of people infected had to be hospitalised (not including care home residents).
As expected, this percentage rose with age.
Of those aged 15-29, only 0.3% were hospitalised, rising to 2.2% of those aged 50-59, and 22.6% of those aged 70 or over (although this last figure is based on lower numbers, as fewer elderly people were tested).
Hospitalisations also varied by geography.
In the north of the country, it reached 3.4%, compared to 1.7% in the south. The report authors said: “This could in part be because of the fact that people infected in the north were overall older and could have had more pre-existing conditions.”
Overall, “by hypothesising that the hospitalisation levels during the first wave of the epidemic remained stable over time”, the study estimated that a total of 6,330,000 people in total in France have been infected throughout the duration of the health crisis.
This is more than two and half times’ the official figure of 2.5 million suggested by data from health body Santé publique France.
Earlier testing capacity ‘insignificant’
Another study, by French public health research centre Inserm, which was published in the journal Nature, on Monday December 21, arrived at a similar estimated figure for the period after the first confinement.
It said that as many as nine in 10 symptomatic cases were not being detected and counted officially in May, and its authors called for improved testing capacity.
They said that testing capacity had been “insufficient, even for the low levels of viral spread seen after confinement”, and that it was predictable that capacity would again “rapidly deteriorate with the rise of epidemic activity”.
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