France’s Covid-19 deaths pass 100,000

The number of people killed by Covid-19 in France climbed past 100,000 on Thursday, with the virus claiming a further 300 lives in the past 24 hours, the country’s health authority said. A day earlier, the death toll since the start of the pandemic had stood at 99,805. France is the third country in Europe to reach the grim milestone of 100,000 coronavirus deaths, after the United Kingdom and Italy.

Worldwide, the US has the highest death toll with over half a million, followed by Brazil. France is battling a severe third wave of infections, with over 5,900 patients in intensive care, the highest level since spring 2020.

Opposition parties accuse President Emmanuel Macron of letting the crisis spiral out of control by repeatedly rebuffing doctors’ calls for a third nationwide lockdown before finally agreeing to close schools on April 3.

France has also drawn criticism for the relatively slow pace of its vaccination campaign. While the pace of inoculations has shot up in recent weeks, France is still lagging far behind several other countries, including Britain in the vaccination stakes.

So far it has administered 15.75 million shots compared with 40.96 million in Britain.