If the number of Covid-19 cases continues to drop in France, the epidemic is not at a standstill. People admitted to hospital after contracting the virus are still high, according to the latest data from health authorities. The appearance of new sub-variants of Omicron on the territory is also to be watched.
In China, the zero Covid strategy is still at work, but the confined city of Shanghai is seeing its toll increase with 87 deaths from the virus this Sunday, April 24.
- The balance sheet climbs in Shanghai, the city of Beijing on alert
The death toll from Covid-19 has risen to 87 dead in Shanghai, still confined, while the Chinese capital Beijing called for “action without delay” after a rebound in positive cases. China, which has been facing its worst epidemic outbreak in two years in recent weeks, has since the beginning of April confined almost all of the 25 million inhabitants of its economic capital Shanghai, the epicenter of the contagion.
The Asian giant, which follows a strict zero Covid strategy, has managed to limit the total death toll to less than 5,000 since the virus appeared in late 2019 in the center of the country. The low mortality is a concern, especially since vaccination rates are low among the oldest.
As for contaminations, they remain below 200,000, if we stick to official figures, which are much lower than international counts. But the more contagious Omicron variant hit the people of Shanghai hard, placed under indefinite confinement, in sometimes Spartan conditions.
- In France, still fewer cases, but as many patients in hospital
The decline in the Covid-19 epidemic observed for ten days continued on Saturday April 23, but the number of hospitalized patients remained stable, in particular in critical care, according to daily figures published by Public Health France (SPF).
The ebb is confirmed: with 80,571 positive cases recorded in 24 hours, the average for the last seven days stands at just over 80,000 daily contaminations, while it stagnated above 130,000 at the start of April. Amplified by the Easter Monday holiday, the decline is nonetheless proven for the eleventh consecutive day. The same is not true in the hospital, where there are still 24,840 infected patients, including 1,636 in critical care, almost as many as at the start of last week.
- Nurses authorized to vaccinate adults without a medical prescription
Nurses will be able to administer all the vaccines provided from the age of 16 “without prior medical prescription” from Sunday, according to a series of texts published on Saturday in the Official Journal, which also extend the prerogatives of pharmacists and midwives. Three months after a favorable opinion from the High Authority for Health (HAS), the government validates the extension of “vaccination skills” for these three professions, which have proven themselves during the Covid-19 epidemic.
This decision primarily benefits nurses, now “qualified to administer, without prior medical prescription” vaccines against fifteen diseases: influenza, rabies, diphtheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis, whooping cough, human papillomavirus, pneumococcus, hepatitis (A and B), meningococci (A, B, C, Y and W). Caregivers will be able to perform these injections on all people “aged 16 and over for whom these vaccinations are recommended”.
Only one in four hospitalized patients fully recovered after one year
Only around one in four patients hospitalized with Covid-19 had fully recovered after a year, according to a British study, which specifies that being a woman or obese increases the risk of maintaining health problems. This study, presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Lisbon and published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, used adult patient data from 39 UK National Health Service (NHS) hospitals between March 7, 2020 and April 18, 2021.
Recovery was assessed using measures of different patient test results five months and one year after discharge from hospital. In particular, the researchers took blood samples from the participants during the five-month visit to analyze the presence of various inflammatory proteins. Some 2,320 patients were examined five months after their discharge and 33% of them were examined one year later.
- First cases of BA.4 and BA.5 in France
These cases of coronavirus in France mainly fall under the BA.2 sub-variant of the Omicron. But according to the latest epidemiological update from Public Health France on Thursday April 21, the first cases of the BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants have been detected on the territory. “One case of BA.4 and two cases of BA.5 have been identified in France”, specify the health authorities. They are subject to enhanced surveillance, but “at this stage, no worrying epidemiological or clinical element is associated with them”, adds SpF.
“They are not associated with a worrying epidemiological or clinical situation in South Africa where they mainly circulate”, underlines the agency, which explains that this vigilance is based on the fact that BA.4 and BA.5 present a factor of significant transmissibility, similar to that of the Delta variant.
- The Cook Islands record their first Covid death
The Cook Islands, a small country of 17,000 people in the Pacific Ocean, recorded its first death from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic on Saturday, Prime Minister Mark Brown announced. “It is with great sadness that I announce that we have just recorded our first death in the country attributed to Covid-19,” the Prime Minister said in a statement on Saturday evening.
The victim, a 63-year-old woman, “had received her three doses of anti-Covid vaccine, but she also suffered from several pathologies”, he said. The Cook Islands completely isolated themselves from the rest of the world at the start of the pandemic, and only recorded their first case of coronavirus last December.