France has reported its highest daily number of deaths from COVID-19 since the coronavirus epidemic began, saying 499 more people had died in hospital to bring the toll to 3,523.
There are now 22,757 people hospitalised in France with COVID-19, with 5,565 of them in intensive care, health official Jerome Salomon told reporters in his daily update.
The French death toll includes only those who died in hospital and not those who died at home or in old people's homes. The number of confirmed cases also rose steeply by 7,578 to 52,128.
Many cases however go unregistered because of a lack of testing equipment. "This situation is completely unprecedented in the history of French medicine," said Salomon.