France Reports Over 20,000 Daily COVID-19 Cases Despite Vaccination Efforts

[Asia Economy Reporter Kiho Sung] France is accelerating its COVID-19 vaccination campaign, but the spread of the virus shows no signs of slowing down, with more than 20,000 new cases reported daily.

On the 12th (local time), the French Ministry of Health announced that 25,229 new COVID-19 positive cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 4,015,560. The death toll increased by 254, reaching a total of 90,146.

Notably, the number of COVID-19 patients admitted to intensive care units exceeded 4,000 for the first time since late November last year, with 1,096 of these patients located in the ?le-de-France region centered around Paris.

Since starting COVID-19 vaccinations on December 27 last year, France has administered the first dose to 4,569,849 people as of this date.

With a population of 65 million, France has set goals to complete vaccinations for 10 million people by mid-April, 20 million by mid-May, and 30 million by summer this year.

On the same day, the French High Authority of Health (HAS) approved the use of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Janssen, the European subsidiary of the American pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson (J&J), increasing the total number of vaccines available in France to four.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.