The number of Covid-19 patients in France’s intensive care units has risen to a new high for this year as doctors warn a third wave of the virus could soon overwhelm hospitals.
Data on Sunday showed there were 4,872 ICU patients being treated, close to a November peak during France’s second wave of the virus, but below a high of about 7,000 in April last year.
It comes as a group of 41 hospital doctors in the Paris region signed an article in the newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche warning that they might soon have to start choosing between patients for emergency treatment.
Scientists have argued that the government’s partial lockdown measures are inadequate faced with fast-spreading coronavirus variants.
Meanwhile German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Germany’s states to step up efforts to curb rapidly rising infections, and raised the possibility of introducing curfews to try to get a third wave under control.
Merkel expressed dissatisfaction that some states were choosing not to halt a gradual reopening of the economy they had previously agreed to.
“We have our emergency brake ... unfortunately, it is not respected everywhere. I hope that there might be some reflection on this,” she said.
Merkel blamed her country’s difficulties during the coronavirus pandemic on “a tendency towards perfectionism”.
And she acknowledged that mistakes were made by her government, including plans for an Easter lockdown that were later reversed.
“We have a difficult situation,” she said in the interview with public broadcaster ARD.
Germany’s disease control agency on Monday reported 9,872 newly confirmed cases in the past day, and 43 deaths.
