Key Points

Significant increase in emergency room visits and hospitalizations in the Île-de-France region.

In Week 38 (September 14–20), the apparent incidence rate reached 132 new cases per 100,000 residents in the Île-de-France region, up from 123 the previous week. Paris has the highest incidence rate in mainland France, exceeding 200 cases per 100,000 residents. The region’s positivity rate rose from 7.8% to 8.9%. Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis are the only departments in metropolitan France to exceed the 10% threshold. It should be noted that the positivity rate is three times higher among symptomatic individuals (16%) than among asymptomatic ones (5%), underscoring the need to prioritize testing policies for specific populations: symptomatic individuals, close contacts, and healthcare workers.

The circulation of the virus is also increasing significantly within facilities housing the elderly, as the number of confirmed cases has doubled compared to the previous week, indicating spread across different age groups in the population.

The resurgence of the epidemic is therefore continuing its upward trend and is also reflected in the acceleration of cluster detections, the number of which is likely also underestimated due to increasing delays in the reporting and validation of these signals. Only 3.3% of confirmed cases recorded since May 13 originated from an identified cluster. This indicator no longer allows for effective epidemiological monitoring of the regional situation.

The hospital sector is facing an exponential increase in activity: in emergency departments, a 44% rise in visits was observed in week 38, and 20% of visits for suspected COVID-19 result in hospitalization. Thus, the number of hospitalizations—which had already been rising sharply since the previous week, rising from 3.2 to 4.2 hospitalizations per 100,000 inhabitants—has reached 7.6 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Similarly, intensive care admissions in the Île-de-France region, which account for one-third of all admissions in France, rose sharply in Week 38 (+38% compared to Week 37, versus +11% between Weeks 36 and 37), foreshadowing a significant impact on intensive care units in the coming weeks.

The saturation of testing systems is affecting the overall management of the epidemic, both in terms of surveillance, monitoring, and epidemiological forecasting capabilities, as well as measures for managing confirmed cases, which require the early implementation of measures to prevent secondary transmission.