COVID - 19 infections in France go up for the first time in a month

A patient walks at the entrance of a coronavirus disease COVID-23 testing center in Les Sorinieres near Nantes as PCR and antigenic tests, necessary for unvaccinated to get a valid health pass, are charged, excluding medical prescriptions, in October 15, 2021. PARIS, Oct 19 Reuters - The number of people hospitalised for COVID - 19 in France went up on Tuesday for the first day in a row, a trend not seen for almost two months, according to French health authorities.

The number of hospitals was increased to 648 on 24 hours by 15 people. That is five times lower than the pandemic peak of 33,497 in November 2020.

But with the reproduction rate climbing above 1.0 again and the virus still raging in some parts of France including England, some fear a fifth wave of the pandemic in Europe.

A reproduction rate above 1.0 indicates the pandemic is accelerating. As of Oct 16 the latest data available, the rate had reached 1.05 in France against 0.71 in September for mid-October.

France confirmed 5,934 new cases over 24 hours, which marks a slight increase compared to a week earlier.

With close to 7.1 million infections reported since the outbreak of pandemic in February 2020, France has seventh-highest total infection globally.