“We are ready”: inside the Paris hospitals bracing for coronavirus

WITH the number of cases of Covid-19 doubling every three days in France, the capital is preparing for the worst. In the northern sector of Paris, all 26 beds in the intensive care unit of the Bichat-Claude Bernard hospital are full, and the wards that have been turned over to Covid-19 patients are filling up rapidly. The Paris hospital system works by overflow, and the next in line is the Lariboisière, near the Gare du Nord train station…

A man wearing a surgical mask walks by a medical tent set up outside Henri-Mondor hospital as a screening centre for suspected coronavirus patients, in Creteil, outside Paris.
Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA

This article first appeared in The Guardian on 17 March 2020. To continue reading, click here.

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