Estimating the burden of SARS-CoV-2 in France

Salje, Henrik; Tran Kiem, Cécile; Lefrancq, Noémie; Courtejoie, Noémie; Bosetti, Paolo; Paireau, Juliette; Andronico, Alessio; Hozé, Nathanaël; Richet, Jehanne; Dubost, Claire-Lise; Le Strat, Yann; Lessler, Justin; Levy-Bruhl, Daniel; Fontanet, Arnaud; Opatowski, Lulla; Boelle, Pierre-Yves; Cauchemez, Simon

France has been heavily affected by the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic and went into lockdown on the 17 March 2020. Using models applied to hospital and death data, we estimate the impact of the lockdown and current population immunity. We find 3.6% of infected individuals are hospitalized and 0.7% die, ranging from 0.001% in those <20 years of age (ya) to 10.1% in those >80ya. Across all ages, men are more likely to be hospitalized, enter intensive care, and die than women. The lockdown reduced the reproductive number from 2.90 to 0.67 (77% reduction). By 11 May 2020, when interventions are scheduled to be eased, we project 2.8 million (range: 1.8–4.7) people, or 4.4% (range: 2.8–7.2) of the population, will have been infected. Population immunity appears insufficient to avoid a second wave if all control measures are released at the end of the lockdown.