More than 22,000 new cases of Covid-19 contamination were recorded in 24 hours in France, where hospital pressure remains high against a background of the progression of more contagious variants, according to data from Public Health France published on Friday.
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The number of contaminations (22,139) is down compared to the previous day (23,448), but remains on a very high plateau, fluctuating between 20,000 and 26,000 since January.
The positivity rate (positive people compared to all those tested) fell from 6.7% to 6.6%.
The situation remains tense on the front of hospitals, which currently welcome 27,572 patients (-194 compared to Thursday), including 663 admissions.
Among them, 3,235 patients are treated in the intensive care units, including 112 who arrived in the last 24 hours, much less than the day before (275).
The health authorities fear hospital saturation, but to date, the situation "does not justify" a new confinement, Prime Minister Jean Castex estimated on Thursday.
To avoid this scenario, the government has renewed its prudential instructions, just before the start of the winter school holidays.
In 24 hours, 296 people died from Covid-19 in hospital (against 360 the day before), bringing the death toll to 78,603 against 77,952 on Thursday, since the start of the epidemic in France.
As of Friday evening, 1,772,602 million people had received at least a first dose of the vaccine.
The spread of more transmissible variants of the coronavirus makes probable the need for "
stricter measures
" in France "
in the near future
", due to an already "
very high
"
number of hospitalized patients
, a health official said on Friday. public France.