France has registered more than 100,000 infections of the virus in a single day for the first time since the pandemic began, and hospitalizations for COVID-19 have doubled in the last month, while the contagious omicron variant complicates the government’s efforts to avoid a new quarantine.
More than one in 100 people in the Paris region has tested positive in the last week, according to the regional health service. Most of the new infections are associated with the omicron variant, and government experts expect it to be the dominant one in France in the coming days.
Meanwhile, a boom in delta infections in recent months has boosted hospital admissions.
More than 1,000 infected people died in the last week in France, bringing the total to more than 122,000 deaths.
The government called emergency meetings on Monday to address next steps. Some scientists and educators have urged delaying the reopening of schools after the holidays or reintroducing the curfew.
But the education minister said schools should reopen as planned on January 3, and other members of the government were working to avoid measures that would affect the economic recovery.
Instead, the government hopes that speeding up vaccinations will suffice. The government is preparing a draft law that would require vaccination to enter all restaurants and many public spaces, instead of the current health pass system that allows people to enter if they present a negative test or prove to have recovered from COVID-19 if they are not vaccinated.
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