PARIS (Reuters) – France saw the number of patients in intensive care wards with COVID-19 increase by 111 on Monday, the first time since early April that the tally was over 100, health ministry data showed.
The total number in emergency care beds rose to 1,667, following a steady increase from a 2021 low of 859 on July 21. At the end of April, at the peak of the third wave, more than 6,000 COVID-19 patients were in ICU.
The worsening data follows a sharp increase in the number of daily new infections, driven by the more contagious Delta variant of the virus. New infections are back to a seven-day average of more than 22,000 per day, after having fallen to less than 2,000 per day at the end of June.
France also reported 68 new coronavirus deaths in hospitals, taking the total to 112,270.
(Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
