By the end of the first week of containment exit, Olivier Véran talked with the JDD. “We will get a first feedback by ten to fifteen days. On Friday May 15, 1,100 new coronavirus cases were diagnosed. It’s less than 2% of tests performed. we now widely test and many asymptomatic. The noose is tightening. Since Monday, we have identified 25 clusters in the country. The system set up to test, isolate and break the contamination chains is working”. Before adding: “one worry remains: Mayotte. This is the only place where the epidemic gains ground, despite confinement still implemented there”.
If on May 11th the Institut Pasteur estimated that 4.4% of the French population, or 2.8 million people, have been infected by the novel coronavirus (the margin is included between 2.8 and 7.2, that is to say between 1.8 and 4.7 million people), the numbers of tests performed do not show the same conclusion. As a matter of fact, only 142,291 tests have come back positive since March, according to the numbers presented by Santé Publique France.
Before taking note of the deconfinement’s assessment, remains the number of 60,000 deaths avoided thanks to containment, a number estimated by the EHESP, if the virus followed its path. They think 23% of the population have been infected during this period, leading to 670,000 hospitalizations and at least 140,000 cases in ICU.
Note that an emergency re-containment scheme exists and could be implemented if the toll of daily new cases was to double up. The government relies on the French’s responsibility to avoid many new contaminations: upholding barrier gestures, gatherings under 10 people and limiting visits to fragile people.
