French coronavirus infection rate unlikely to fall to lockdown threshold -minister

Reuters
·1 min read

PARIS (Reuters) - French BFM TV reported on Monday that Health Minister Olivier Veran has told members of parliament that it is unlikely that the number of daily new coronavirus cases will fall to 5,000 by Dec. 15.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that threshold is one of the conditions for ending a nationwide lockdown on Dec. 15. Another condition was for the number of people in intensive care to fall below 3,000.

On Sunday, France registered 11,022 new cases, down from a high of over 86,000 per day a month ago. The number of people in ICUs fell by 10 to 3,220 on Sunday.

(Reporting by GV De Clercq; Editing by Catherine Evans)