COVID FRANCE. Number of cases, number of patients in hospital and intensive care, deaths… Discover the latest official figures on the coronavirus epidemic in France every day, from 7 pm.
Since the arrival of the coronavirus in France, the public authorities (Santé publique France and Data.gouv.fr) have monitored the epidemic on a daily basis using a set of key indicators, which are updated daily. Confirmed cases, deaths, hospitalized and intensive care patients, new admissions, positivity rate and incidence rate… Discover the full up-to-date report below. The Covid-19 figures below are updated every evening between 7 and 9 pm.
Here is the latest official data available on the Covid-19 in France according to the daily reports of Public Health France and from data.gouv, based on data from SI-DEP tests, hospital data, and feedback from medico-social institutions, including nursing homes. In order to properly understand these figures, many clarifications are needed. They are detailed below the table:
PRECISION – Since January 16, 2022, the official publication of the total number of confirmed cases since the start of the epidemic (total accumulation) has been suspended “en due to an extension of the data consolidation period”, specifies data.gouv† The first figure shown above is therefore not an official figure, but comes from an accumulation of non-consolidated data that we have performed and published daily via the SI-DEP database. Reinfections are counted as new cases.
Here is the number of Covid-19 cases, deaths, hospitalizations, resuscitations and recoverys that have been observed more or less compared to the previous assessment (usually the day before). Latest data available in France according to daily reports from Public Health France and Data.gouv:
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Based on daily data on the coronavirus in France, we have developed several curves that allow us to observe the evolution of the virus according to the number of confirmed cases, the number of hospital admissions and patients in intensive care, the number of hospital deaths and total deaths and the number of returnees, equated with recovery.
For the first graph, the curve represents the average of the cases recorded daily over 7 days, while the bars represent the number of cases recorded in the last daily report. For the other graphs, the curve represents the total (eg total number of ongoing hospitalizations), while the bars correspond to daily changes (balances of each day of hospital admissions, new deaths, etc.).
Details on the number of cases: Public Health France specifies that “the data can be highly variable depending on the screening activities (reduction of activities on the weekend for example, mechanical reduction of the number of cases on Monday) and the deadlines for reporting results” (usually 24 hours a day). ). Several changes to the method of recording positive tests may also have disrupted the case counting:
- The French government and Public Health changed their method of collecting data on test results in mid-May 2020, with the SI-DEP project† The figures for and after 13 May 2020 are therefore not completely comparable. Both the amount and the nature of the tests performed have evolved considerably. From a few thousand tests at the start of the epidemic, France went to more than 1 million tests per week and then to 2 million at the beginning of November 2020, inevitably affecting the numbers. In addition, at the peak of the first wave, in March/April 2020, the tests mainly involved critically ill people, generally hospitalized, with all patients with no or few symptoms being discarded. The actual number of Covid-19 cases in France was therefore significantly higher than the estimated number of confirmed cases during this period.
- As of mid-November 2020, the number of positive tests includes: in addition to PCR tests, antigen test results†
- On May 20, 2021, Public Health France made a double correction. While there have been more than 5.9 million cases in France since the start of the epidemic, this figure has been revised to nearly 5.57 million, or 348,846 fewer cases. A very visible correction to the curve above. others “incidents” on the data stream have been reported several times by Public Health France.
Details on hospital admissions: a distinction must be made here between the evolution of the total number of patients hospitalized at a time T and the new hospital admissions, in other words the new hospital admissions per day (gross). In one case it is a balance sheet, which takes into account admissions, but also discharge from hospital (cures or death). In the other we are only talking about new admissions to the hospital or intensive care unit with Covid during a day.
Hospital admission data also takes into account patients hospitalized “with” Covid-19 and not “before” Covid-19. So they can take into account patients who are hospitalized for other reasons. Of all Covid-19 patients, the proportion of patients hospitalized for reasons other than Covid-19 (but carrying SARS-CoV-2) may have reached a third of patients according to detailed data which Public Health France has made available since the end of January 2022.
Precision about the number of deaths: Since May 2020, Public Health France no longer updates the balance in Ehpad on a daily basis. This report was updated weekly at the end of the summer, then several times a week, and finally stabilized at a rate of once or twice a week. Therefore, we initially preferred to erase the number of daily deaths in nursing homes so as not to skew the graphs. At the request of several readers, we have been showing updates of deaths in nursing homes (dark gray bars) since November 13, 2020, which causes artificial peaks during updates. Data errors and corrections have also been reported several times by Public Health France since mid-March 2020, but were also observed in late 2021, sometimes leading to overestimations, followed by negative changes in the number of deaths.
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The Ministry of Health calculates a series of statistics on the course of Covid-19 in the country based on the raw data. Listed below are four particularly important indicators: RT-PCR test positivity rate, incidence rate, effective reproduction rate, and intensive care bed occupancy rate. If the first and the last are easy to understand (percentage of positive tests on the total number of tests performed and percentage of intensive care beds occupied according to the country’s initial capacities), the other two deserve a definition.
The incidence, represented by the second curve, is considered an important indicator of the virulence of the virus. This is the number of new coronavirus cases diagnosed through a PCR test in the last 7 days. This figure is related to the number of inhabitants, ie a rate expressed per 100,000 inhabitants.
The reproduction number (R) corresponds to the average number of people infected by a patient. If this figure is greater than 1, it means that a person with Covid-19 infects more than one other person on average and thus the disease is progressing.
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Precision on the positivity rate and the incidence rate: Public health France changed the calculation method for the main indicators, namely incidence and test positivity, on December 8, 2020. The addition of antigenic tests in the first indicator then mechanically inflated the result of the calculation. † The positivity rate has dropped drastically. The reason this time comes from negative test counting: if the same person has taken multiple tests within 60 days and they are negative, each of them is counted now. Previously, if a person tested negative multiple times in a row within 60 days, only the first test was counted. Only after a positive test did his situation change.
Public health France explained in a press release that this new calculation method proved to be more accurate because it takes into account the “prevalence of the virus in the population tested”. “Today, as the epidemic continues, it is common for the same person to perform several tests, especially when the previous ones were negative. In addition, knowledge has evolved and the risk of reinfection, which is considered very low today but possible after 60 days, should be can be identified,” the health agency wrote at the time.
