PARIS- New variants of the coronavirus are circulating more widely every week and a tighter curfew put in place earlier this month has not managed to curb the spread of the virus, French Health Minister Olivier Veran told a news conference on Thursday.
He also said that tensions on the hospital system were mounting, with about 60% of French intensive care beds now occupied by coronavirus patients and France now close to having to transfer patients between regions to relieve pressure on certain hospitals.
Veran said the new variants of the virus - mainly the British variant - are circulating actively in France and that the number of patients infected with them has increased from about 500 per day in early January to more than 2,000 patients per day today.
"We consider these new variants as new viruses ... we need to avoid a pandemic within the pandemic," Veran said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, France reported nearly 27,000 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in the biggest one-day jump since mid-November when France was in its second lockdown.
(Reporting by Geert De Clercq and Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Toby Chopra and Alexandra Hudson) ((geert.declercq@tr.com; +33 1 4949 5343; Reuters Messaging: Twitter: @gvdeclercq))
