(Bloomberg) -- France on Wednesday registered more than 360,000 new Covid-19 infections, just shy of Tuesday’s record, highlighting the omicron variant’s fast-paced spread across the country.
New cases totaled 361,719 on Wednesday after 368,149 on Tuesday, according to data from the public health office. The death toll rose by 246 to 126,305, while the number of Covid patients in emergency care climbed by 16 of 3,985, the highest level since mid-May last year.
More than half of Europe’s population may be infected with omicron within weeks at current transmission rates, a World Health Organization official said Tuesday. The fast-spreading variant represents a “west-to-east tidal wave sweeping across the region,” said Hans Kluge, the regional director of the WHO for Europe at a briefing.
