Coronavirus: More than 500 new deaths in 24 hours (Illustration) – Jean-Francois Badias / AP / SIPA
- There are now more than 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus in France.
- According to Public Health France, 57% of people who died from the disease are men, 93% are over 65 years old and 41.5% had comorbidities.
- The regions most bereaved at the start of the crisis were Ile-de-France and Grand-Est.
The symbolic number is officially reached. 100,000 people have died from the coronavirus in France since the start of the epidemic. Who are these people ? Where did they live? Did they already suffer from health problems? 20 minutes draws a robot portrait of the individuals behind this assessment, using data from Public Health France and those
identified by the Center for Epidemiology on Medical Causes of Death (
CépiDc).
During the first wave in May 2020, Public Health France indicated that 84% of deaths concerned people with co-morbidities and 92% were over 65 years old. A little less than a year later, the death rate from Covid-19 remains highest among people over 65 with comorbidities.
Mostly men, elderly, and suffering from one or more co-morbidities
Since the start of the epidemic, 58% of people who have died from Covid-19 have been men. Between May 2020 and April 2021, the average age of death is between 84 and 85 years old and 93% of those who died were 65 years old and over. Among the youngest (under 20), only twelve people died of the disease in France.
But age is not the only factor to take into account, as Catherine Hill, epidemiologist and bio statistician reminds us: “age and co-morbidities both play a role in severe forms of Covid-19”. According to Public Health France, out of 43,000 death certificates received by the CépiDc, 65% of deceased people were already weakened by one or more pathologies. High blood pressure and cardiac pathologies are the most mentioned on electronic certificates.
Deaths in hospital
The regions most bereaved at the start of the crisis were Ile-de-France and Grand-Est. In the fall of 2020, during the second wave, other regions were hit hard, such as Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur.
According to Public health France, between March 1, 2020 and April 6, 2021, 71,208 deaths occurred during hospitalization. 26,093 other deaths occurred in accommodation establishments for the elderly (Ehpad) and other social and medico-social establishments.
However, it should be remembered that faced with the outbreak of the epidemic in April and May 2020, the authorities struggled to organize the count, and only deaths occurring in hospitals were then counted. The CépiDc mission subsequently made it possible to process information related to mortality with electronic certificates, but there are still uncertainties about the figures for deaths in nursing homes.