Roundup: France's COVID-19 cases spike again, signaling tough months ahead

French health authorities reported 15,674 new infections on Friday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients to 2,442,990, Xinhua reports.

The number of coronavirus-related fatalities exceeded 60,000 for the first time after a further 610 people have died in the past 24 hours, the Public Health Agency said.

The reproduction rate (R0) is slightly above one almost across the whole country. This means that each person who has the disease will transmit it to more than one person.

The accelerated spread of the virus came as no surprise to Arnaud Fontanet, an epidemiologist at the Pasteur Institute, one of France's main scientific research centers.

«As soon as we ease the restrictions, the virus begins to circulate again ... If more than half of the population is not immune, the virus will continue to circulate,» he said.

The number of people who tested positive for the virus in a single day reached an all-time high of 60,486 on Nov. 6. The current average is 10,000.

However, the downward trend has been flattening after shops were allowed to reopen on Nov. 28. In the past two weeks, France reported between 11,000 and 14,000 new cases per day, well above the target of 5,000 set by the government for further easing the restrictive measures.

«The fall in infections has stopped and we are entering a risky period of Christmas holidays. ... We will have a very tense situation, which will continue over the first quarter of 2021,» Fontanet told France Inter radio.

«Unfortunately, I do not see an improvement in the short term because the vaccination's impact will only be felt at the end of the first half of the year,» he said.