PARIS • More than 5,000 people are in intensive care units (ICU) in France for Covid-19, as the country entered its third national lockdown to combat the pandemic.
The government had been trying to keep the lid on new Covid-19 cases with curfews and regional measures but from last Saturday, and for the next four weeks, schools and non-essential businesses across the country will remain shut.
There were 5,273 patients in ICUs as of last Saturday. A day earlier, France reported an increase of 145 ICU patients, the highest daily increase in five months.
The health ministry also reported 213 new Covid-19 deaths last Saturday, bringing the toll to 96,493 since the start of the pandemic.
President Emmanuel Macron has pledged more hospital beds to care for critically ill Covid-19 patients. He had hoped to steer France out of the pandemic without having to impose a third national lockdown that would further batter an economy still reeling from last year's slump.
But new strains of the virus have swept across France and much of Europe, amid a slower roll-out of anti-coronavirus vaccines in the European Union than in some countries including Britain and the United States.
The health authorities did not publish new case numbers on Saturday, citing a problem with the data flow of some test results.
According to an Ifop poll of 1,021 people carried out online on April 1 and published yesterday in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper, a majority of French people expressed misgivings over the government's handling of the pandemic.
Fifty-eight per cent of people said they did not trust the vaccination campaign would be carried out according to plan. However, a majority of people, 51 per cent, said they did plan to get a Covid-19 vaccine, with only 34 per cent saying they would not. Another 15 per cent said they had already been inoculated.
Mr Macron has vowed to speed up France's vaccination campaign, and the defence ministry said late on Saturday that seven military hospitals would be mobilised from tomorrow to administer doses.
As of Saturday, 9.24 million peoplem or 17.6 per cent of the adult population have received at least one vaccine dose, and 3.11 million have received two injections, according to the health ministry.
France has approved the use of vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca.
REUTERS, XINHUA
