PARIS/TOULOSE (Reuters) – A spike in coronavirus cases will put France under huge pressure in coming days, its prime minister said on Friday, after reporting its biggest daily death toll and officials fearing hospitals in and around Paris could be saturated in 48 hours.
Medical staff, wearing protective suits and face masks, wait for the patients to arrive for medical consultations at an emergency COVID-19 center inside a gymnasium in Taverny near Paris as the spread of the coronavirus disease continues in France, March 26, 2020. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
Paris and its suburbs now account for over a quarter of the 29,000 confirmed coronavirus infections in French hospitals, with almost 1,300 now in intensive care. Highlighting the disease’s brutality, a 16-year-old girl with no underlying health conditions died of the virus on Thursday.
The death toll nationwide stood at 1,696, with signs that the virus is also becoming endemic in the southwest.
“The epidemic wave that is sweeping France is a wave that is extremely high and it is putting the entire care and health system under tremendous strain,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told reporters after a visioconference between ministers.
“The situation will be very difficult in th