In France, more than 270,000 new cases were identified on Tuesday, January 4, during the last 24 hours in the territory.

These figures testify to the magnitude of the current wave of the epidemic.

This has been going on since the fall and was relaunched at the end of 2021 by the arrival of the Omicron variant, considerably more contagious than its predecessors even if its severity seems limited.

The effects on the hospital, still very uncertain in the medium term, are already being felt, with more than 2,000 admissions in one day, according to previous figures given on Monday by Public Health France.

The increase in recorded cases is partly explained by an unprecedented number of tests: 8 million last week, according to Olivier Véran, who mentions both PCR tests and "antigenic" tests, less precise but faster.

However, the epidemic surge is very real as evidenced by the jump in the "positivity rate", the proportion of cases in the only people tested.

It now exceeds 15%, close to its autumn 2020 records.

With AFP

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