France reported a massive increase of the number of people hospitalised with COVID-19 on Monday, while also becoming the eighth country in the world to report more than 900,000 cases since the start of the outbreak.
The daily data showed the partial curfew imposed on nine major cities, including Paris, since Saturday has yet to yield some results.
Experts say it takes two weeks on average for containment measures to show their effectiveness. During the country's national lockdown put in place between March 17 and May 11, hospitalisations kept rising until April 14.
Health authorities reported 13,243 new COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, sharply down from Saturday's record of 32,427 and Sunday's 29,837.
But the Monday figure tends to dip as there are fewer tests conducted on Sundays. The seven-day moving average of new infections, which averages out weekly data reporting irregularities, stood above the record 23,000 level for the second time in a row.
The cumulative number of cases now totals 910,277.
The number of people hospitalised went up by 743, the highest increase since April 6, at 11,661. That is still far lower than the mid-April high of 32,292, but well above the Aug. 29 low of 4,530.
The number of patients being treated in intensive care units (ICUs) rose by 151 to above 2,000 for the first time since May 17.
The number of people in France who have died from COVID-19 infections rose by 146 to 33,623, versus 85 on Sunday and a seven-day moving average of 114.
That latter figure is above the 100 threshold for the third day in a row, a sequence unseen since May.
(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Chris Reese and Alex Richardson)
