Covid-19 France: Death and virus case figures
Reader question: I have not seen any reporting on the fact that on March 23, France stopped reporting cumulative numbers of cases and cumulative numbers of deaths. They are reporting daily numbers of people in the hospital (but not confirmed cases at home) and daily deaths, but not cumulative figures. I find this really troublesome and not consistent with western democratic ideals — it’s something you’d expect to see from Russia or North Korea, not France. I’d be interested to see someone look into this.
The government does in fact give cumulative numbers of cases and cumulative numbers of deaths, divided into those which take place in hospitals and those which take place in retirement homes on their website at https://www.gouvernement.fr/info-coronavirus/carte-et-donnees
The figures are updated daily. In each category one figure gives the cumulative number and another the changes over the last 24 hours. The categories given are the number of cases confirmed by a positive test, the total number of deaths, the number of people in hospital, deaths in hospital, the number of people who have returned home and the number of people in intensive care and figures for retirement homes including confirmed cases, suspected cases (where there are symptoms but there have not been a test) and deaths.
Figures come from France’s Public Health body and are taken from hospitals and retirement homes.
These figures do not include the numbers of people at home with symptoms but who have not been tested.
There are more detailed statistics at data.gouv.fr on where you can see the evolution of the figures since March 18, percentages of death in different ages and sex (on April 17 60.3% of those who died were men) and detailed figures for regions and departments. You can also find out how many people have been tested and how many proved positive and figures from around the world.
