PARIS (Reuters) – France reported 4,376 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Monday, up slightly from last Monday’s 4,317 and compared with 16,547 on Sunday.
France typically registers a low number of new cases the day after the weekend, but the week-on-week increase remained below 4% for the fourth day in a row and is now back to levels last seen at the start of the year.
The total case count is now up to 3.47 million, and the health ministry reported an additional 412 deaths on Monday, taking the total to 82,226.
The number of people in hospital with COVID-19, which touched a 2021 peak above 28,000 last Monday, rose by 77 to 26,522. The number of people in intensive care with the virus rose by 72 to a new 2021 high of 3,381.
The ministry also reported that the number of people vaccinated against the disease rose by 112,596 to 3.01 million, including more than 720,000 second injections.
French vaccination chief Alain Fischer said on Monday that the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson should be approved in Europe soon and could be rolled out in France’s vaccination campaign by April.
The government aims to vaccinate 4 million people by the end of February and 8 million by end of March.
(Reporting by GV de Clercq; Editing by Richard Lough and Hugh Lawson)
