Sixteen new countries have been added to France's "scarlet" list due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Reuters learned from an official source on Wednesday August 12. A classification that will require, from August 17, French travelers from these countries to take a PCR test, before their departure or upon their arrival in France. On the national territory, the number of detected cases continues to increase in unprecedented proportions since May.

According to Reuters, the countries concerned are: Maldives, Colombia, Montenegro, Bolivia, Kosovo, Dominican Republic, Argentina, Costa Rica, Chile, Equatorial Guinea, Kyrgyzstan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, the Palestinian Territories, Armenia and Mexico.

"Clear degradation" of indicators

More than 2,500 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were recorded in 24 hours on French territory, according to the daily report of the Directorate General of Health (DGS), published Wednesday August 12, which notes a "clear deterioration" of indicators .

In one week, out of a total of more than 600,000 tests, 11,633 people were diagnosed positive for the new coronavirus, including 2,524 in the last 24 hours.

The positivity rate is now 2.2%, also up (1.6% during the week of July 27 to August 2). "This confirms the increase in viral circulation on the territory", underlined the DGS.

"The indicators for monitoring the epidemic on the national territory show a clear deterioration over the last few days", she added. Several departments have an incidence "close to the alert threshold set at 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants per week".

"It is essential during this holiday period, at any place and at any time, that individually and collectively, we continue our efforts to avoid an epidemic resumption," the statement insisted.

In addition, 18 new outbreaks of clustered cases ("clusters") were identified within 24 hours, bringing the total to 896, of which 578 were closed.

The number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care, roughly stable since the end of July, has fallen to 379, 12 less than on Tuesday.

Île-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Hauts-de-France and Guyana account for 69% of these patients in intensive care.

France now has 30,371 people who have died from Covid-19 since the start of the epidemic (i.e. 17 more than Tuesday), including 19,866 in hospitals and 10,505 in social and medico-social establishments, in particular Ehpad (figure dating from Tuesday).

With AFP

The summary of the week France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week

I subscribe

Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 application

google-play-badge_FR