France’s Covid-19 death toll tops 65,000

Paris, Jan 4 : In yet another grim milestone in one of the hardest hit European countries, France’s overall coronavirus death toll has surpassed the 65,000 mark, while the total caseload increased to more that 2.7 million, according to the Health Ministry.
On Sunday, the Ministry registered 116 new fatalities, increasing the nationwide death toll to 65,164, Xinhua news agency reported.
The caseload went up to 2,712,975 after 12,489 new infections were also recorded on Sunday.
Cold weather, gatherings during year-end holidays, return to school scheduled for Monday and emergence of virus variants are the main worrying factors, Director General of Health Jerome Salomon said in an interview on Sunday with weekly newspaper Journal du Dimanche.
The return to class of the pupils who might have travelled with their families across the country will lead to a mixing of people, which “can reshuffle the cards of the epidemiological situation”, said Salomon.
“The trend is already worrying” with an incidence rate “on the rise again after a fairly long plateau,” a gradual increase in the number of cases since the beginning of December and significant hospital figures which “remain at a high level”, he added.