More than 17,000 new cases of COVID-19 contamination have occurred in the past 24 hours, according to figures from Public Health France on Wednesday, the day after the second confinement was lifted.
• Read also: [EN DIRECT 16 DÉCEMBRE 2020] All developments in the COVID-19 pandemic
Precisely 17,615 additional people were declared positive, against 11,532 on Tuesday. The test positivity rate remained stable at 6.2%.
The pressure on resuscitation services continues to ease since they welcomed 2,840 patients with COVID-19 on Wednesday, against 2,871 the day before.
The number of patients in intensive care, useful for assessing the pressure on hospital services, fell below 3,000 last Thursday for the first time since the end of October.
In the past 24 hours, 292 people have died in hospital, bringing the total number of deaths in France since the start of the epidemic last March, to 59,361.
The second lockdown, in effect since October 30, was lifted on Tuesday and replaced by a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.
On October 29, French President Emmanuel Macron said that “our long-term objective is simple: to reduce contamination very strongly, from 40,000 contaminations per day to 5,000”.