The number of hospitalized patients and those in intensive care increased slightly in 24 hours on Saturday, after a continuous decline for a few days, according to figures published by Public Health France.
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With 157 new deaths in hospital in 24 hours, Covid-19 has now caused the death of 64,921 people in France since the start of the epidemic.
The number of patients hospitalized for Covid-19 is 24,458, 195 more than Friday, with 646 new admissions during the day.
The number of patients in intensive care or intensive care is also up slightly, with 2,632, 23 more than on Friday, and 101 new admissions in 24 hours.
Faced with the risk of a new outbreak of the epidemic after the end of year celebrations, the government has decided to strengthen the curfew since Saturday in 15 departments in the east of the country.
The positivity rate, which measures the percentage of people positive for Covid-19 out of all those tested, fell from 3.8% to 4.6% on Saturday.
The number of new cases recorded over 24 hours was 3,466 against 19,348 on Friday.
During the holidays, this daily figure has varied enormously since mid-December, fluctuating between some 3,000 and more than 21,000.
But still far, on average, from the government goal of going down to 5,000 cases per day.
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