France exceeds 100,000 daily Covid-19 cases

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - France registered a record number of new coronavirus cases Saturday, exceeding the 100,000 mark for the first time since the pandemic began.

Data from the public health department showed 104,611 new cases were registered. The figure has skyrocketed since Dec. 22 when the number of daily cases was 84,272.

The worsening figures in France follow the deteriorating health situation in the UK, which crossed the 100,000 mark on Dec. 22.

The surge is driven by the detection of the highly contagious omicron variant in the last week of November when the number of infections began to tick upward. On Dec. 4, contaminations crossed 50,000 cases.

Health authorities had earlier projected reaching the milestone of 100,00 daily cases by the end of the month.

The advancement is partly due to the result of widespread testing in the run-up to the Christmas holidays. As of Thursday, nearly 1.55 million tests were conducted in 24 hours.

While the government held back from introducing stronger restrictions for Christmas festivities, new measures are likely to be announced before the New Year celebrations.

President Emmanuel Macron will chair a health defense council meeting Monday when the bill for a vaccine pass will be presented to the Council of Ministers.

The government aims to adopt the bill in January mandating a booster shot for the adult population for entry to public places and removing the provision of a negative PCR test.

The bill will tighten restrictions around 5 million unvaccinated people who have chosen to not be immunized for the virus.