https://www.wired.com/story/frances-virus-train-patients-less-hard-hit-areas/

Along with much of the world, France has gone into lockdown mode to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus. Citizens are staying at home, planes on the tarmac, cars in garages. The national railroad has whittled service to a minimum, but it sent a TGV high-speed train from Strasbourg to Angers, in the Loire Valley, Thursday morning. The manifest, however, was most unusual: Instead of the more than 500 passengers that normally fit into the double-decker, it carried 20 Covid-19 patients.

The goal of the “TGV medicalisé” was to take the pressure off hospitals in France’s Grand Est region, along the German and Belgian borders, where nearly 6,000 Covid-19 cases have been confirmed. Only the Paris area, with about 7,600 cases, has more within France, according to the national health agency. With fewer than 400 cases, the Loire region has medical capacity to spare. (Nationwide, France had reported 25,223 cases and 1,331 Covid-19 deaths as of Thursday afternoon.) As the virus moves through the country—and the world—like a wave, French officials hope to maximize their medical resources by moving patients from hard hit areas to calmer ones. “The idea is to play on those gaps,” mission leader Lionel Lamhaut told workers in a video published by Le Maine Libre.