France coronavirus infections set new record above 20,000 per day

PARIS - The number of new coronavirus infections in France jumped more than 20,000 in one day for the first time since the start of the epidemic, health ministry data showed on Friday.

The ministry reported 20,330 new infections, taking the cumulative total to 691,977 since the start of the year. In the past two days the ministry had reported more than 18,000 daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The number of deaths from the virus increased by 109 to 32,630, the most in a week but below highs of around 150 seen earlier this month. The death toll figures can be skewed as the ministry often reports several days of senior citizen residence data in one batch.

The number of people in hospital jumped by another 240 to 7,864 nationwide and the number of people in intensive care units - the best measure of a health system's ability to deal with the epidemic -rose by 21 to 1,448.

At the height of the crisis in early April, more than 7,000 people were in intensive care with COVID.

On Thursday, France's health minister said that Lyon - the country's third-biggest city - and three other cities will have to close their bars in coming days, as Paris and Marseille have done, in a bid to slow the spread of the virus.

-reuters-

France virus cases 'growing fastest among young people'

PARIS - French health authorities warned Thursday that new coronavirus cases were rising fastest among younger people, as the number of confirmed infections per day continued to tick up.

In mainland France, the pace of growth in cases in the week of August 3-9 was fastest among people aged 15-44, the health ministry's DGS public health arm said, calling it a "troubling situation".

In total 2,669 tests had come back positive in the past 24 hours, it added, pointing to "regular growth" in daily new cases.

The figure was higher than Wednesday's 2,524, which itself had been the highest since May.

Among the new infections were 50 gendarmes based in Tarbes, southwest France, out of a group of 82 who had just returned from a deployment in Polynesia, the prefecture in the Hautes-Pyrenees department said.

Richard Peabody, an epidemiologist leading the High Threat Pathogens Team at the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, warned that laxer respect for infection control measures was leading to increased case numbers across the continent.

"If you take... the pressure off the virus, then it will come back," he said, calling on European governments to be mindful of the lessons learnt in the first months of the pandemic.

So far almost 30,400 people have died of coronavirus in France -- 17 in the past 24 hours -- and 374 are presently in intensive care.

Agence France-Presse