Key Points

In Week 14 (April 4–10, 2022), emergency department visits and hospitalizations following such visits remained stable across all age groups.

This week, we note a slowdown in the increase following four consecutive weeks of sharp rises in visits for suspected COVID-19 across all age groups (8,089 vs. 7,869 visits, or +3% vs. +15% in Week 13 and +29% in Week 12). The share of activity and the proportion of hospitalizations are also up slightly (2.3% vs. 2.2% and 36% vs. 37% in Week 13, respectively). This increase mainly concerns children under 2 years of age (+4%, or +25 visits) and those aged 75 and older (+5%, or +130 visits).

COVID-19 remains the third most common condition in emergency departments among those aged 75 and older, the seventh most common among those aged 15–74, and has moved from ninth to seventh place among children under 2. At the regional level, emergency department visits for suspected COVID-19 continue to rise in 7 regions (French Guiana, Réunion, Corsica, Brittany, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, PACA, Burgundy-Franche-Comté) and are stable or declining in the others. Since monitoring began on February 24, 2020, 765,387 emergency room visits for suspected COVID-19 have been recorded.

Among other indicators, there has been little increase, but several indicators remain at a high level for the season; this is particularly the case for respiratory conditions (influenza/flu-like illness, acute bronchitis, and pneumonia on the rise among children and those aged 75 and older, as well as ENT conditions among children), gastroenteritis (on the rise among those aged 2–14 and 15–74, with a high hospitalization rate among children), and isolated fever among children.