Doctors warn that French hospitals are about to collapse due to the coronavirus

The pressure of the pandemic coronavirus about the hospitals of France It continued to worsen this Sunday, with new increases in hospitalized patients and in intensive units, according to the latest data released by the health authorities.

The number of patients in intensive care units reached 4,872, very close to the maximum of 4,903 that marked the peak of the second wave, in mid-November, the daily report of the Public Health agency of France.

The number of patients with covid hospitalized, which are already 27,712, from 27,259 the previous day.

The daily infections were 37,014, a very high figure on a Sunday, for a total of 4.54 million, while 191 new deaths were registered, which now add up to 94,596.

Currently, intensive care units throughout France are at 93% of their capacity, and in the Paris region (Ile de France) they are at 123%.

Today’s national figures are released on the same day that a group of 41 medical managers from hospitals in the region of Paris published a newspaper column to warn that, at the current rate, within a few days they will be forced to classify seriously ill patients according to their survival expectations, and not allocate resources to those with a worse prognosis.

“In the next fifteen days, with the infections that have already taken place, we have almost total certainty of the intensive care beds that we will need and we know that our assistance capacity will be exceeded,” he says.

This classification “will affect all patients, covid and non-covid, especially for adult patients’ access to critical care,” say hospital officials.

France has 19 departments under lockdown, accounting for more than a third of the population, while another 16 are under “reinforced surveillance.”

The country’s president, Emmanuel Macron, warned in an interview published today of the possibility of approving new restrictions if this strategy of regional confinements does not work and hospital pressure continues to deteriorate.

Even so, Macron stressed that “nothing has been decided” and that he prefers to see if the measures implemented in the last ten days to stop this third wave of the pandemic before approving a third total confinement.