More than one million corona infections in France

Spread the love

Read Time:3 Minute, 1 Second

Starting Saturday, the nightly curfew will affect about two thirds of the country’s population, or about 46 million people.

As the second EU country after Spain, France exceeded the threshold of one million corona infections on Friday. In the past 24 hours, a record number of 42,032 new infections were recorded, the French health authorities announced. The total number of detected infections thus rose to 1,041,075, and a total of 34,508 infected persons have died since the beginning of the pandemic in France.

Strict measures
Starting Saturday, the nightly curfew will affect about two thirds of the country’s population, or about 46 million people. The curfew applies in 54 départements and the French overseas territory of French Polynesia. France records more than one million cases of coronavirus. The curfew is new, for example, in the Département Bas-Rhin with the Alsace metropolis Strasbourg and on Corsica. In addition, almost the entire Mediterranean coast is affected. In the greater Paris area and eight other metropolitan areas, the curfew has already been in force for a week. Without good reason, people in the affected areas are not allowed to be on the streets between 9 pm in the evening and 6 am.

France, with its population of around 67 million, is severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic. On Friday, the number of cases registered there since the beginning of the pandemic exceeded the one million mark. By Friday evening, a total of 1.04 million cases had been confirmed, the health authorities announced. The number of new infections registered within 24 hours also reached a new peak of 42,032. More than 34,500 people have died to date in connection with an infection with the coronavirus. For a week now, the health emergency has been in effect again, allowing the government to impose extensive restrictions by decree.

Corona in Spain and Italy
On Wednesday, Spain was the first EU country to officially register more than one million corona infections. However, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Friday that the total number of infected people was actually over three million. At the beginning of the pandemic, many infections had remained undetected, said Sánchez.

In Italy, the number of corona infections has risen sharply again. 19,143 new infections were registered on Friday, on Thursday there were still 16,079 cases. In addition, 91 deaths were reported, compared to 136 the day before. The number of deaths in Italy with or on Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic in February thus exceeded the 37,000 threshold to 37,058. 182,000 tests were performed within one day.

The number of confirmed active cases climbed to 186,002 on Friday, while the number of Covid-19 patients treated in hospitals rose to 10,549 from 9,694 on Thursday, the Italian Ministry of Health announced. There were 174,404 people in quarantine. There were 1,049 patients in intensive care units, compared to 992 the day before. Despite increasing concern about the high number of newly infected patients, the government in Rome is sticking to its plan not to impose a new nationwide lockdown in Italy for the time being. “We must avoid a production stop and the closure of schools,” said Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

This view is shared by the Minister of the Interior, Luciana Lamorgese, who fears massive protests in the event of a new Italy-wide exit ban. “We must do everything possible to prevent a new lockdown, which would have social and economic consequences with an impact on public order,” warned Lamorgese.