An exploding number of cases. In the Rhône department, the incidence rate of the coronavirus epidemic is now 1,661 positive cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Against 1,200, three days earlier. Figures above the national average. And unheard of since the start of the pandemic. As a reminder, at the height of the second wave, in the fall of 2020, the incidence rate had not exceeded 900. While the contamination curve has been climbing exponentially for two weeks, what is the situation in hospitals from Lyon ? Update on the situation.
Saturated resuscitation services but fewer Covid-positive patients
On the eve of the weekly review of the HCL, Hospices Civils de Lyon, the occupancy rate of intensive care units was 92.9%. “The evolution has been important for two weeks. We observed during the first week of the Christmas holidays, a very strong pressure on resuscitation with a saturation rate close to 100%, notes Jean-Christophe Richard, head of the intensive medicine, resuscitation and continuous medical surveillance service. from the Croix-Rousse hospital. We were very worried for the second week but the pressure eased a little bit. “
At the start of the year, 80 patients were hospitalized in the various intensive care units in Lyon. Or “half less than during the peaks of the second and third waves”, observes the doctor. “If the intensive care units remain saturated, the difference is that there are much fewer patients with the coronavirus”, he summarizes.
“The mortality rate for patients with Delta remains very high”
Faced with the multiplication of positive cases in the territory, conventional hospitalizations have logically increased in the establishments of Lyon. “The impression, but we remain cautious, is that the patients, treated in these services, present a less severe form of the disease, not requiring respiratory assistance. You might think that Omicron is actually less of a nuisance than Delta, ”said the doctor.
If the Omicron variant is now the majority on the national territory and much more contagious than Delta, it has not yet appeared in the intensive care services of Lyon, where only one suspicion of the Omicron variant has been recorded for the moment. “We are clearly only on Delta cases in intensive care”, underlines Jean-Christophe Richard. And to reveal: “The mortality rate for patients with Delta and placed in intensive care remains very high: 35%. »And 50% for intubated people.
A majority of unvaccinated patients
Of the 80 people currently hospitalized in intensive care in Lyon, 36% of them had received two doses of vaccines “since July”. Statistics that climb over the weeks. Some, a small proportion, had received a third booster dose. This mainly concerns immunocompromised people. But the vast majority of patients placed in intensive care remain unvaccinated people. “More than 60%”, supports Jean-Christophe Richard, stressing the importance of vaccination. “I strongly advise people to do this. Currently 10% of the French population is not vaccinated but they constitute 60% of Covid cases in intensive care. If we have succeeded in eradicating serious diseases such as smallpox or polio, it is thanks to vaccination, ”he concludes.