93 Covid-19
Seine-Saint-Denis, an abandoned department near Paris, paid the heaviest price to Covid-19, recording a 123.4% increase in mortality between March 1 and April 30, 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.
Precarious and unhealthy populations, often from immigration; cramped or overcrowded housing; composed of front-line workers exposed to increased risk of contamination; all the social indicators of the department could only increase the health catastrophe. The phenomenon is not new, Seine-Saint-Denis has been considered the first “medical desert in France” for years.
It is also the poorest territory of the metropolis, where the largest number of workers live in the most exposed sectors of activity: 16.2% of hospital staff in the region live in Seine-Saint-Denis, thus than 18.7% of cashiers and salespeople. It is also a department that hosts many migrants, most of them living in unsanitary conditions along abandoned land.
Confinement, under these conditions, was very difficult for families living in overcrowded apartments and unable to afford to stop working when their work is sometimes undeclared. But, thanks to unprecedented mutual aid networks and thanks to the coordination of certain actors in the field, the department has succeeded in providing an emergency response commensurate with the social and economic challenges of the health crisis.
It is the combination of social inequalities, health inequalities and inequalities in health establishments that explains why 93 is one of the departments most fatally affected by Covid-19. The proof is that health is the combination of good living conditions, in all its dimensions (food, housing, environment, working conditions, etc.), and access to a good quality health system. Covid-19 highlights very strong inequalities in the suburbs around Paris that existed before the epidemic.
Precarious and unhealthy populations, often from immigration; cramped or overcrowded housing; composed of front-line workers exposed to increased risk of contamination; all the social indicators of the department could only increase the health catastrophe. The phenomenon is not new, Seine-Saint-Denis has been considered the first “medical desert in France” for years.
It is also the poorest territory of the metropolis, where the largest number of workers live in the most exposed sectors of activity: 16.2% of hospital staff in the region live in Seine-Saint-Denis, thus than 18.7% of cashiers and salespeople. It is also a department that hosts many migrants, most of them living in unsanitary conditions along abandoned land.
Confinement, under these conditions, was very difficult for families living in overcrowded apartments and unable to afford to stop working when their work is sometimes undeclared. But, thanks to unprecedented mutual aid networks and thanks to the coordination of certain actors in the field, the department has succeeded in providing an emergency response commensurate with the social and economic challenges of the health crisis.
It is the combination of social inequalities, health inequalities and inequalities in health establishments that explains why 93 is one of the departments most fatally affected by Covid-19. The proof is that health is the combination of good living conditions, in all its dimensions (food, housing, environment, working conditions, etc.), and access to a good quality health system. Covid-19 highlights very strong inequalities in the suburbs around Paris that existed before the epidemic.
