France would face a months-long COVID-19 epidemic that would overwhelm its health system if something does not change, one of the country’s top medical experts warned yesterday.
“The second wave is arriving faster than we thought,” Patrick Bouet, head of the National Council of the Order of Doctors, told the weekly Journal du Dimanche.
Fresh restrictions to slow the spread of the disease in the country’s worst-hit areas, including the Mediterranean city of Marseille and the Paris region, have run into local resistance.
Photo: AP
Bouet told the newspaper that warnings delivered last week by French Minister of Health Olivier Veran had not gone far enough.
“He didn’t say that in three to four weeks, if nothing changes, France will face a widespread outbreak across its whole territory, for several long autumn and winter months,” Bouet said.
There would be no medical staff available to provide reinforcements and France’s health system would be unable to meet all the demands placed on it, he said.
The health workers responsible for the spring “miracle” would not be able to plug those gaps, he added. “Many of them are exhausted, traumatized.”
France’s health service on Saturday recorded 14,412 new cases over the previous 24 hours — slightly lower than the record 16,000 registered on both Thursday and Friday.
However, over the past seven days, 4,102 people have been hospitalized, 763 of whom are being treated in intensive care.
On Saturday, Marseille bar and restaurant owners demonstrated outside the city’s commercial courthouse against forced closures due to start in the evening.
Separately on Saturday, more than 1,000 New Yorkers tested positive for COVID-19 in a single day, marking the first time since June 5 that the state has seen a daily number that high.
The number of positive tests reported daily in the state has been steadily inching up in the past few weeks, a trend possibly related to increasing numbers of businesses and college campuses reopening, and children returning to school.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Saturday announced that there were 1,005 positive cases tallied on the previous day, out of 99,953 tests, for a 1 percent positive rate.
From late July through the start of this month, the state was seeing an average of about 660 people test positive per day.
In the seven-day period that ended on Friday, the state had averaged 817 positive tests per day.
Cuomo aide Gareth Rhodes on Saturday said that the new positive-case number came out of nearly 100,000 tests, compared to about 60,000 tests daily in June.
“Is there cause for concern? As long as COVID is here, yes,” Rhodes wrote on Twitter, noting that certain ZIP codes in Brooklyn and the lower Hudson Valley have seen increases in new cases and hospital admissions.
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
NATURAL INTERRUPTION: As cables deteriorate, core wires snap in progression along the cable, which does not happen if they are hit by an anchor, an official said Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) immediately switched to a microwave backup system to maintain communications between Taiwan proper and Lienchiang County (Matsu) after two undersea cables malfunctioned due to natural deterioration, the Ministry of Digital Affairs told an emergency news conference yesterday morning. Two submarine cables connecting Taiwan proper and the outlying county — the No. 2 and No. 3 Taiwan-Matsu cables — were disconnected early yesterday morning and on Wednesday last week respectively, the nation’s largest telecom said. “After receiving the report that the No. 2 cable had failed, the ministry asked Chunghwa Telecom to immediately activate a microwave backup system, with
RSS