PARIS (Reuters) – France reported on Saturday that 5,273 people were in the intensive care units (ICU) for COVID-19, an increase of 19 from the previous day, when the country invaded its third national exclusion to combat the pandemic .
The government has tried to keep the lid on new COVID cases with curfew rules and local measures, but from Saturday and for the next four weeks, schools and non-essential businesses across the country will remain closed.
The increase in ICU patients on Saturday follows a much larger jump the previous day – the highest in five months, at 145. President Emmanuel Macron has promised more hospital beds to care for critically ill COVID-19 patients.
Macron hoped to send France out of the pandemic without imposing a third national exclusion that would hamper an economy that would still fall under last year’s slump.
But new strains of the virus have swept across France and much of Europe amid a slower rollout of anti-COVID vaccines in the European Union than in some countries, including Britain and the United States.
Reporting by Sarah White and Blandine Henault; Edited by Gareth Jones; Edited by Gareth Jones