With 141 additional deaths recorded in the last 24 hours in hospital, the total number of deaths due to the Covid-19 epidemic stands at 70,283 on Sunday in France.

More than 16,000 new contaminations have been reported over the same period of time.

The tension remains strong on the hospitals.

The number of new Covid-19 contaminations recorded in 24 hours reached 16,642, a little lower than in recent days as is generally the case on weekends, according to figures from Public Health France on Sunday.

The positivity rate, which measures the percentage of people positive for the new coronavirus among those tested, is up very slightly, to 6.6%, against 6.5% the day before.

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141 new deaths recorded in 24 hours

The toll, which passed the 70,000 death mark on Saturday since the start of the epidemic, continued to increase with 141 new deaths in hospitals in 24 hours, bringing the total to 70,283 deaths linked to Covid-19.

The tension on hospitals remains high, with a total number of hospitalized Covid patients amounting to 25,235, including 698 new hospitalizations.

Among them, 2,766 are in intensive care, with 136 new admissions in 24 hours.

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France has applied a general curfew at 6 p.m. since Saturday, fearing an epidemic rebound linked to the threat of new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus.

Government policy has not been effective enough so far to significantly reduce the number of daily infections, while the vaccination campaign has only just begun.

According to the latest figures provided by the Ministry of Health on Sunday, 422,127 people have been vaccinated in France since the start of the campaign on December 26.