The director of Monaco’s Princess Grace Hospital has indicated an alarming trend in the department dealing with coronavirus patients, the admission of younger patients.

All 11 deaths in the first two weeks of 2022 have been among the elderly and unvaccinated, Benoîte de Sevelinges said. Six were Monaco residents, while the other patients came from the surrounding municipalities served by the hospital.

However, the average age in intensive care has fallen to 63. In the previous week, one patient was 44 and another 38.

“Very young, and without underlying health conditions,” she told local French daily Monaco Matin in an interview.

“If I had only known”

The great majority of all coronavirus patients are not vaccinated. In the department specialising in pneumonia and now treating coronavirus patients, one person in 11 was vaccinated as of Thursday, January 13. One of the four patients in intensive care had received two doses of vaccine.

“We live through dramas every day.”

She said it is very hard to witness patients who can’t breathe any more, to see people suffocate in their beds. All these people should be at home with their children, not in a bed in hospital.

Many of the unvaccinated coronavirus patients say: “If I had only known.”

Mme de Sevelinges added that it is too early to tell if the supposedly milder Omicron variant will make much of a difference to the progress of the pandemic. “We need to wait a few weeks before we can draw conclusions, “ she said.

PHOTO: Benoîte de Sevelinges