Key Points

In Week 46 (November 15–21, 2021), the second week back from the All Saints’ Day break, emergency room visits remained stable across all age groups, except among 2- to 14-year-olds (+16%, or 9,472 visits). Hospitalizations following emergency room visits are on the rise among children under 15 (+9%, or 799 hospitalizations).

Visits for suspected COVID-19 across all age groups continued to rise for the fifth consecutive week (3,140 visits vs. 2,402 in Week 45, +31%). This increase was observed across all age groups, with a much more pronounced rise among 2- to 14-year-olds (+151%, or +59 visits). The share of activity is also up to 1.0% (vs. 0.8% in Week 45), while the proportion of hospitalizations following visits has decreased to 49% (vs. 52% in Week 45). At the regional level, visits are on the rise in all regions except Centre-Val-de-Loire, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana. The sharpest increases were observed in Corsica (+125%, or +30 visits), Hauts-de-France (+54%, or +87 visits), Occitanie (+50%, or +108 visits), and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (+47%, or +47 visits). Since monitoring began on February 24, 2020, 577,466 emergency room visits for suspected COVID-19 have been recorded.

Seasonal respiratory indicators are almost entirely stable or declining among adults and rising among children. Among the latter, the following stand out:

• an increase in asthma-related visits among children under 15 (+47%, or +1,128 visits);

• an increase in visits for bronchiolitis among children under 2 years of age (+9%, or +319 visits);

• among those aged 2–14: an increase in visits for ENT conditions (+39%, or +1,926 visits), cough (+56%, or +284 visits), bronchitis (+80%, or +188 visits), and pneumonia (+71%, or +220 visits).

Emergency room visits for influenza/flu-like illness are on the rise across all age groups but are more pronounced among children (+127%, or +100 visits) than among adults (+20%, or +54 visits) and remain at levels comparable to those of the 2019–2020 season. Among other indicators, there has also been an increase in gastrointestinal symptoms among children: vomiting (+12%), abdominal pain (+10%), and gastroenteritis (+8%), as well as general malaise among those aged 2–14 and 15–74 (up 14% and 9%, respectively).