PARIS | The number of new cases of COVID-19 in France hit a new record on Saturday with nearly 27,000 positive people in 24 hours, while the increase in the number of patients in intensive care continued, according to published figures by Public Health France.
• Read also: All the developments of the pandemic
The number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in intensive care, the most serious cases, again increased slightly to 1,456 people, or 17 more than the day before, the highest since May.
New intensive care admissions, one of the other important indicators for monitoring the evolution of the epidemic, are on the other hand down, with 110 patients, or 40 fewer than on Friday.
At the peak of the epidemic, in early April, more than 7,000 patients were hospitalized in intensive care. This number then fell sharply until the end of July, then evolved in a range of between 350 and 400 patients until the end of August, before resuming a constant increase. The current national capacity is around 5,000 intensive care beds.
The total number of hospitalized patients, which also includes less severe forms of the disease, continues to increase continuously, to 7,976 on Saturday, up 133 from the previous day.
26,896 new cases of coronavirus contamination have also been detected in the past 24 hours, a record since the use of large-scale tests.
The test positivity rate (proportion of positive people out of all those tested) continues to increase to reach 11% for the first time (it was 10.4% on Friday).
Finally in the past 24 hours, 54 people have died from COVID-19, bringing the total deaths since the start of the epidemic to at least 32,684.