Covid France: record 180,000 new cases reported in 24 hours

A record 179,807 new Covid cases were recorded in France yesterday (December 28), Santé publique reports.

Santé publique has clarified with Le Parisien journalist Nicolas Berrod that this number was not due to a delay in test results being declared over the Christmas weekend. However, it could have been augmented by a larger number of people taking tests on Monday (December 27) after being unable to access them over the public holiday.

Yesterday’s infection numbers top the previous record of 104,611 cases in one day, which was set on Christmas Day for the previous 24 hour period.

Over the past week, the number of daily positive test results has averaged 87,500, whilst on December 14 it sat at 49,506.

Read more: Coronavirus: Daily updates on the situation in France

France’s infection rate currently stands at 799.7 cases per 100,000 people, while the positivity rate of tests carried out is 8.5%.

Yesterday, 2,110 people were hospitalised with Covid and 417 admitted to intensive care, compared to 1,634 hospitalisations the previous day and 328 intensive care admissions.

There are now 17,405 Covid-positive patients in hospital with Covid and 3,416 in intensive care.

During France’s second Covid wave, 32,654 people had been admitted to hospital by November 12, 2020, while the number of hospitalisations had peaked at 32,131 in the spring of that year, Les Echos reports.

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