Summary

In Week 12 (March 22–28, 2021), there was an increase in emergency department visits and hospitalizations following emergency department visits among children (+9%, or +7,334 visits and +684 hospitalizations). Emergency department visits and hospitalizations following visits remained stable among adults.

In Week 12, visits for suspected COVID-19 across all age groups increased (+20%, or +1,900 visits), as did their share of total activity (11,360 visits and a 4.1% share of activity in Week 12 vs. 9,460 visits and 3.6% in Week 11) for the third consecutive week. An increase is observed across all age groups: among children (+28%, or +61 visits), those aged 15–74 (+21%, or +1,474 visits), and those aged 75 and older (+18%, or +366 visits).

Suspected COVID-19 is the third most common diagnosis among those aged 15–74 as well as among those aged 75 and older. The proportion of hospitalizations following a visit across all age groups remains stable at 54%. At the regional level, visits for suspected COVID-19 are on the rise in all regions except Centre-Val de Loire, Corsica, and Mayotte. The most significant increases were observed in Nouvelle-Aquitaine (+26%, or +107 visits), Pays de la Loire (+22%, or +75 visits), Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (+22%, or +84 visits), Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (+21%, or +226 visits), Occitanie (+17%, or +80 visits), and Île-de-France (+15%, or +458 visits). In the French overseas departments, visits increased in Réunion (+35%, or +28 visits), Guadeloupe (+34%, or +15 visits), and French Guiana (+54%, or +7 visits). Since monitoring began on February 24, 2020, 417,825 emergency room visits for suspected COVID-19 have been recorded.

Among seasonal and most common conditions in children, there was an increase in visits for respiratory illnesses: asthma (+15%, or +266 visits), ENT conditions (+12%, or +944 visits), and bronchiolitis in children under 2 years of age (+24%, or +434 visits). Also among children, there was an increase in visits for trauma (+13%, or 3,072 visits), isolated fever (+10%, or 250 visits), and vomiting in children aged 2–14 (+9%, or 64 visits). Finally, there was an increase in visits for trauma among those aged 15–74 (+8%, or 3,381 more visits) and for general malaise among those aged 75 and older (+8%, or 240 more visits).