Coronavirus: Patients evacuated using military aircraft and high-speed trains from worst-hit areas of France

Medical staff wearing protective suit walks as a patient is embarked aboard a French medical helicopter to be evacuated to a German hospital during the coronavirus outbreak ( Frederick Florin / AFP via Getty Images )

Hundreds of patients have been evacuated from hospitals in France’s worst-affected areas during the coronavirus pandemic, including some by military aircraft and high-speed trains.

Jerome Salomon, the national director general for health, said 250 people have been moved elsewhere in the country, and some have even gone to Germany. 

Army aircraft and boats have been used in the transfers, he said. 

People receiving treatment in eastern France have been moved in a bid to ease pressure on overstretched hospitals in the area, which has been badly-hit by the coronavirus outbreak. ​

An army aircraft and two high-speed TGV trains transferred around 40 critically ill patients out of the Grand Est region over the weekend. 

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A German military plane landed in Strasbourg on Sunday to take people to Stuttgart and Ulm for treatment, according to Amelie de Montchalin, France’s Europe minister.  

Meanwhile, specially-adapted high-speed trains carried 36 patients to the Nouvelle-Acquitaine region in the southwest, where a line of ambulances waited outside Bordeaux station.

The minister for foreign affairs said Switzerland and Luxembourg – as well as Germany – have offered to take in more than 100 patients in intensive care in the Grand Est region.

“More than 80 have already been transferred,” Jean-Yves Le Drian tweeted. 

Grand Est was the first French region to be hit by a wave of coronavirus infections, with local officials saying hospitals were crowded by the time the country went into lockdown. 

France has already doubled the number of beds in intensive care units from 5,000 to about 10,000 since the start of the crisis and the government has pledged to increase that number to 14,500.

Non-essential operations have been cancelled and medical students drafted in to deal with a staffing shortage as the country battles the coronavirus pandemic. 

More than 40,000 people have been infected with Covid-19 in France, whose death toll from the virus stood at around 2,600 on Monday. 

Additional reporting by Reuters