PARIS (Reuters) – France registered a record 60,486 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Friday, after posting a record 58,046 on Thursday, health ministry data showed.
The new cases took the total number of confirmed cases to 1.66 million, close behind Russia, which, with 1.73 million cases has the world’s fourth-largest number after the U.S., India and Brazil.
The ministry also reported 828 new deaths from coronavirus, including 398 deaths in hospitals over the past 24 hours, and 430 deaths in retirement homes over three days. On Thursday, the ministry reported 363 deaths in hospitals.
The seven-day moving average of the combined death toll rose by 40 to 471, compared to a high of 975 on April 9. The highest number of COVID-19 deaths reported in one day in France was 1,438 on April 15.
A week after the government imposed a new nationwide lockdown, the number of people in hospital with the virus rose by 553 to 28,979, the smallest one-day increase in nearly three weeks.
The number of people in intensive care with COVID-19 rose by 101 to 4,331, the smallest increase in six days.
(Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Chris Reese, Kirsten Donovan)
