The French are not equal in the face of what the government calls “epidemic recovery”, in other words the 5th wave of the coronavirus epidemic. Even in Hauts-de-France, some territories are more affected than others, like the North where the incidence rate reaches 271.8 cases per 100,000 inhabitants while the Somme and Oise are around 140. Be that as it may, the alert threshold is widely exceeded everywhere and the Regional Health Agency (ARS) underlines an upward trend in the five departments of the region.
In Hauts-de-France, the incidence rate recorded last week was 193 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, ie “an increase of 57% compared to the previous week”, details the ARS based on figures from Public Health France. A situation that worries the health authority all the more since this rate is now higher than that reached during the peak of the 4th wave of the epidemic, last September.
Indoor sport and recreation in the viewfinder
The analysis of the contamination chains enabled the ARS to draw up several observations. First, a decrease in vigilance on the respect of barrier gestures and isolation measures, both in the private and professional spheres. Thus, the director general of ARS Hauts-de-France, and the prefect of the region “call on each inhabitant of the region to maintain the vigilance and the responsibility which they have shown since the start of the epidemic” .
The other observation concerns “situations and behavior conducive to contamination”. According to the ARS, there is a greater risk of catching the coronavirus during indoor sports activities, indoor artistic or leisure activities or during gatherings or associative events concerning, in particular, seniors. On the other hand, according to the Academy of Lille, schools are still relatively spared even if, here again, the figures are on the rise. The data, stopped Thursday, show a closed school out of 3,819 establishments (schools, colleges and high schools). There are still 667 closed classes, 1,317 students (out of 800,000) and 103 staff (out of 70,505) contaminated.