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France records highest one-day tally in COVID-19 cases since April

FILE PHOTO: A COVID-19 patient connected to a ventilator tube in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Centre Cardiologique du Nord private hospital in Saint-Denis, near Paris, amid the coronavirus disease pandemic in France, May 4

PARIS (Reuters) -France has registered 47,177 new confirmed COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, health ministry data showed on Tuesday, the highest one-day tally since early April at the height of the third wave of the pandemic.

The latest data pushed the cumulative total of cases in France since the start of the pandemic to 7.67 million and the seven-day moving average of new coronavirus infections to well over 32,000.

During the third wave in the spring, the seven-day average briefly rose above 42,000. On April 8, France recorded nearly 85,000 infections.

Authorities say the vast majority of COVID-19 patients in hospitals have not been vaccinated. About 75% of the French population is fully vaccinated.

The health ministry also reported that the number of coronavirus-infected people in French hospitals rose by 389 to 10,249 on Tuesday, the first time the patient tally has been above 10,000 since Sept. 12.

The number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care also continued its steady rise and was up by 75 to 1,824, an increase of 25% in just a week.

The cumulative death toll since the start of the pandemic in spring 2020 stood at over 119,000 late on Monday.

(Reporting by Sophie LouetWriting by Geert De Clercq, Editing by Gareth Jones, Catherine Evans and Grant McCool)