French Health Authorities Report New Spike in COVID-19 Cases

France has reported more than 1,500 new confirmed coronavirus cases, a spike not seen since May 30, while the number of additional deaths linked to the virus rose by the highest amount in three days.

Authorities said in a statement the total of newly confirmed infections rose by 1,588, way above both the daily average of 498 seen over the last seven days and the 430 daily average since the beginning of June.

The number of people in hospital with the COVID-19 disease caused by the virus fell by 255 to 8,886, the first time that total is below the 9,000 threshold for more than three months.

There have been at least 162,900 confirmed cases of coronavirus in France, according to the French government, as of Saturday morning, 29,778 people had died.

National health authorities in France do not provide regional data for test-confirmed cases of the virus, but they do report regional data for the number of people hospitalized for Covid-19 and how many of those people have recovered or died.

Those in intensive care fell by 17 to 634. Both numbers have been trending downward for at least 10 weeks.