In the intensive care unit of Toulouse (Illustration) -
FRED SCHEIBER / SIPA
The number of patients hospitalized for coronavirus continued to increase on Monday, to 26,888, that of patients in intensive care crossing the 3,000 mark for the first time since December 9, according to data from Public Health France.
It was one of the caps set by Emmanuel Macron as conditions for deconfinement in the fall.
French hospitals were thus welcoming 531 patients with Covid-19 more than on Sunday, when their number had crossed the 26,000 mark.
299 sheave admissions in 24 hours
In the intensive care units, which receive the most serious cases, there were 3,031 patients (including 299 who entered in the last twenty-four hours).
They were 2,803 sick in sheaves a week ago.
This figure, a particularly monitored indicator of the pressure on hospital services, had dropped back below 3,000 on December 10, while the second wave of the epidemic ebbed following the re-containment of the population six weeks earlier.
More than 400 new deaths
Public Health France has also announced 449 deaths in the past twenty-four hours, bringing the total number of deaths caused by the epidemic to 73,498.
As usual at the end of a weekend - when fewer tests are carried out - the contamination figures are low, with 4,240 new cases confirmed since Sunday.
Faced with these figures which do not decrease and the presence on French territory of variants, British and South African in particular, much more contagious, the hypothesis of a third confinement is increasingly raised.
The executive said to await - for this week - the verdict on the effects of the 6 p.m. curfew put in place almost a fortnight ago.
More than a million people (1.027 million) had received the first dose of the vaccine on Sunday, since the start of the campaign, at the very end of December.
Covid 19
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