The mask makes its return to the AP-HP. Faced with the bronchiolitis epidemic and the “active circulation” of Covid-19, Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris has reinstated the compulsory wearing of surgical masks in its health establishments.
They must be worn “upon entry into spaces in which patients circulate,” indicates the Île-de-France University Hospital in a press release. This obligation concerns all professionals and patients, whether hospitalized or treated on an outpatient basis. “People in contact with patients (including paramedics, volunteers)” and “visitors aged over six years” are also subject to the rule.
This decision comes as Île-de-France has officially been placed in the bronchiolitis epidemic phase by the health authorities. Three other regions – Brittany, Hauts-de-France and Normandy – are in pre-epidemic mode.
Among children under two years old, 1,659 went to the emergency room for bronchiolitis from November 4 to 10, and 458 of them – almost all babies aged under one year – were hospitalized. Public Health France notes a stabilization of indicators linked to bronchiolitis in community medicine – which can “be transitory following school holidays” – and “a continued increase in visits to emergency rooms”, but with less hospitalizations at the end, said the health agency.
On the Covid side, a stabilization is taking shape, given the data from city medicine, hospitals and even wastewater, after a decline in recent weeks, but the virus continues to actively circulate in France, at a limited level. A combined vaccination campaign against flu and Covid began in mid-October for people at risk, but also for their entourage and caregivers.
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