France began two weeks of confined school holidays on Saturday, without travel between regions, in the hope of curbing the Covid-19 epidemic.
While the vaccination campaign accelerates, the number of patients hospitalized in critical care remains in the red.
Health authorities count 5,838 on Sunday, against 5,769 on Saturday.
Some 286 patients were admitted in 24 hours to these services reserved for the most serious cases (resuscitation, intensive care, continuous surveillance).
This closely watched indicator is thus still approaching the peak of the first wave (just over 7,000 patients at the start of April 2020).
The peak of the second wave (just over 4,900 patients in mid-November) had been exceeded at the end of March.
The symbolic bar of 100,000 deaths from Covid in nearby France
The pressure on hospital services in general is still very high and even increased with a figure that rose this Sunday: there are now 30,671 Covid patients who are treated in the hospital, against 30,238 the day before.
Of this total, 1,305 people have been admitted to a hospital since the day before.
In 24 hours, 178 new deaths were recorded in hospitals, for a total of 98,750 deaths since the start of the epidemic (including 72,626 in hospitals).
The number of new cases registered since the previous day stands at 34,895.