France registers surge in COVID-19 hospitalisations

PARIS (Reuters) -France on Tuesday registered a surge in COVID-19 hospitalisations as a rise in new infections in mid-November led to an increase in patient numbers.

The health ministry reported that the number of COVID-19 patients in French hospitals rose by 618 to 12,714, the second-highest net one-day increase this year behind the net increase of 732 on April 6, when the patient tally was above 30,600.

Due to one of Europe's highest vaccination rates, a rise in new cases now has less impact on hospital numbers than in the spring.

France also reported that the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units rose by 160 to 2,351, the second-highest increase this year. On April 6, ICU numbers rose by 193 to 5,626.

France also reported 59,019 confirmed new cases of infection, pushing the cumulative total to 7.99 million.

The daily new case tally stayed below highs of over 60,000 seen in the spring, but the seven-day moving average of new infections rose to a new year high of over 44,500 per day, although the rate of increase - at under 40% week-on-week - was less than the more than 80% seen two weeks ago.

(Reporting by Geert De ClercqEditing by David Goodman, Angus MacSwan, William Maclean)