France orders 1bn masks and plans to triple ICU beds

[Vergennes]

France has ordered 1bn masks to meet surging demand from hospitals and carers dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, and plans to increase the number of emergency care beds with ventilators to more than 14,000 from 10,000 now and 5,000 before the crisis.

Edouard Philippe, prime minister, and Olivier Véran, health minister, also announced a big drive to roll out more and quicker tests for the virus in the coming weeks.

“There is global competition for masks,” Mr Véran said, noting that France was currently producing 8m a week and consuming 40m. An “airbridge” had been put in place to bring masks from China, including 250m previously ordered from that country. France began the crisis with a stock of 117m.

The number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care in France has continued to rise in recent days to reach 4,273 on Saturday, with the wave of cases first hitting eastern France and now arriving in the Paris area.

A further 319 deaths were reported in French hospitals on Saturday, bringing the national total so far to 2,314. However, there have also been numerous deaths in old people’s homes that have not been included so far in the official figures. The number of confirmed cases rose to 37,575.

“We are in a difficult situation. We know it and you know it,” Mr Philippe said.

https://www.ft.com/content/4ac1266a-436d-3128-b068-2d68ddc1485c

 

[UKBengali]

@Beast
@beijingwalker


China is producing 15,000 ventilators a month now?
Are you ramping the production up?

I presume you have more than enough for yourselves since you have managed to control your outbreak.

How many can China supply the rest of the world as these ventilators are desperately needed now?

 

[Georg]

wow France had the same low number of intensive beds in hospital as Italy

 

[UKBengali]

wow France had the same low number of intensive beds in hospital as Italy

What do you think are the reasons why Germany seems to have such a low death rate?

 

[Nilgiri]

Watch out for quality of what you import:

https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/262...t.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=twitter

600,000 Chinese FFP2 masks the Netherlands have distributed to the hospitals DO NOT WORK.

They are now RECALLED, because they are mostly likely ALREADY in use.

— Dutch public news organisation NOS reports

 

[Dante80]

What do you think are the reasons why Germany seems to have such a low death rate?

1. Very early and massive testing combined with effective quarantine measures.
2. The luck of having the virus introduced in the country mainly by younger people.
3. An extremely good acute care system.

However, that does not mean the death rate will stay the same. As the virus moves over to older people, we are going to see the death rate increase a little. Most projections for the next month give us a rate in the order of around 1% for Germany.

 

[Nilgiri]

1. Very early and massive testing combined with effective quarantine measures.
2. The luck of having the virus introduced in the country mainly by younger people.
3. An extremely good acute care system.

However, that does not mean the death rate will stay the same. As the virus moves over to older people, we are going to see the death rate increase a little. Most projections for the next month give us a rate in the order of around 1% for Germany.

There was early reports that Germany uses different classification from rest of EU regd co-morbidity causes for corona vs non-corona deaths.

It also seems to have been more standardised now so some new deaths (earlier counted as non-corona) have been added in to give a closer to world-avg norm.

 

[aziqbal]

China gave everyone the virus

Now China is making money from virus ?

 

[Dante80]

There was early reports that Germany uses different classification from rest of EU regd co-morbidity causes for corona vs non-corona deaths.

It also seems to have been more standardised now so some new deaths (earlier counted as non-corona) have been added in to give a closer to world-avg norm.

That is somewhat correct, but the three factors mentioned above are still the main drivers for the current outlook of the epidemic on Germany.

-- Germany is now testing up to 500,000 people a week for the coronavirus.
-- In Germany over 80% of those confirmed to have the disease are under 60.
-- Germany has 28,000 intensive care beds - now set to double - 25,000 ventilators, and a truly decentralised health system (where providers can get on with things on their own initiative) which gave them the ability to introduce testing and contact-tracing in early February and ramp up the measures quickly.

 

[UKBengali]

1. Very early and massive testing combined with effective quarantine measures.
2. The luck of having the virus introduced in the country mainly by younger people.
3. An extremely good acute care system.

However, that does not mean the death rate will stay the same. As the virus moves over to older people, we are going to see the death rate increase a little. Most projections for the next month give us a rate in the order of around 1% for Germany.

1 + 2 makes sense but not 3 as both UK and France have much higher percentage of cases(5-6%) that result in death and are not yet being overwhelmed yet, so not having to decide who to ventilate and who not to.
I do not believe that the Germans know something about acute care that neither France or UK knows.

Latest German deaths have gone up to 433 and so we are seeing the steep ramp up now - they look like they are 4-5 days behind UK now as 84 died yesterday, which itself is maybe 4-5 days behind France.

Germany is in a much better position to cope than others as it has by far the largest capacity of ICU beds in Europe but the UK seems to be the most organised in terms of ramping up to meet demand - 500 beds(not all ICU though) will be available by next week in new temp hospital in London which will go up to 4000(yes that is correct!) over the next couple of months. Other sites in Birmingham and Manchester will have even larger temporary hospitals 2-3 weeks behind London.
Even ICU beds are not as effective as people think as only 50% of Covid-19 patients that are put in ICU survive in the UK.