France hit by 'dizzying' daily record of over 200,000 new COVID-19 cases

PARIS: France is seeing a "tsunami" of COVID-19 infections, with 208,000 new cases reported over the past 24 hours, a national and European record, Health Minister Olivier Veran told lawmakers on Wednesday (Dec 29).

France has been breaking COVID-19 records repeatedly over the past few days, with Tuesday's 180,000 cases already the highest for a country in Europe, according to data on Covidtracker.fr.

"This means that 24 hours a day, day and night, every second in our country, two French people are diagnosed positive for the coronavirus," Veran said. "We have never experienced such a situation," he said, describing the increase in cases as "dizzying".

The situation in hospitals was already worrying because of the Delta variant, Veran said, with Omicron yet to have an impact, something he said would eventually happen. The flu will further complicate things for hospitals, he added.

"As for Omicron, I would no longer talk about a wave. This is a groundswell, where several waves combine to form one massive wave," he said.

Global COVID-19 infections have hit record highs over the past seven days, Reuters data showed on Wednesday, as the new Omicron variant spread rapidly, keeping many workers at home and overwhelming testing centres.