France reports nearly 50,000 new COVID-19 cases

France on Thursday reported 47,637 new confirmed coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, compared to 36,437 on Wednesday and a record high of 52,010 on Sunday.

The total number of infections rose to over 1.28 million. The death tally went up by 235 to 36,020.

The number of people going into hospital with the virus fell to 976, after three consecutive days of about 1,200 hospitalisations per day.

There are now 21,183 people in hospital with COVID-19, compared to a high of more than 32,000 mid April. The number of people in intensive care went up by 111 to 3,156.

France will go into a new one-month lockdown starting on Friday.