PARIS (Reuters) – France reported 21,231 new cases confirmed by COVID-19 on Saturday, slightly higher than 20,701 on Friday.
The number of people in France who died from COVID-19 infections rose by 199 to 81,647 – the seventh highest number of deaths worldwide – compared to 320 on Friday.
There were 10,037 new patients hospitalized with the disease in the last seven days and 1,795 new hospitalizations in intensive care units (ICUs) during this period, the Ministry of Health said.
Unlike some of its neighbors struggling to control more contagious variants, France has opposed a new blockade, hoping a nationwide shutdown on Dec. 15, first at 8 p.m., then at 6 p.m., will suffice. to contain the pandemic.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told BFM television on Saturday that the French population was running out of patience and that a new blockade could not be “the last options once all the others have been tried”.
However, some scientists believe that President Emmanuel Macron has made a bet by deciding against a new blockade, despite the threat of highly contagious COVID-19 variants.
Arnaud Fontanet, a member of the scientific council advising the government on COVID-19 policy, told Europe 1 radio on Saturday that she feared that the variant first detected in the UK could explain most cases in March.
In the Moselle region of eastern France, where there have been various cases, the prefecture has ruled out at least for the time being the closure of schools or the implementation of a local blockade that had been requested by some local officials.
The cumulative total number of cases in France increased to 3,448,617, the sixth largest in the world.
Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Edited by Angus MacSwan