PARIS (Reuters) – The coronavirus situation is worsening in the greater Paris region, where hospitals are under tremendous pressure, the director general of the AP-HP Paris hospitals organization, Martin Hirsch, said Wednesday.
Hirsch told RTL radio there were two options to contain the disease: a local weekend lockout, already in other parts of the country, or a wider lockout in the region.
“The virus is out of control. There are as many patients in intensive care today as there were at the height of the second wave, ”he said.
Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Tuesday it was time for more coronavirus restrictions in the greater Paris region.
Hirsch said nearly 1,100 people were in intensive care with COVID-19 in the region, and that number could reach 1,700 by the end of the month if the current trend continues.
In normal times, the greater Paris region has a capacity of about 1,000 intensive care beds, Hirsch said.
In France as a whole, there were 4,239 ICU patients with COVID-19 as of Tuesday, nearly the high in four months.
Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Benoit Van Overstraeten; Adaptation by Himani Sarkar and Andrew Heavens