French Cases Appear to Level Off in Early Sign of Progress

(Bloomberg) -- France reported a continued leveling-off of cases of the novel coronavirus, signaling that confinement measures are starting to contain the worst public health crisis of the past century.

The country had 3,912 new confirmed cases on Monday, fewer than it reported in five out of the past seven days, according to figures presented by Health Minister Olivier Veran. Deaths from the virus rose by 833 to 8,911, Veran said.

“The pressure is still very great on hospitals, enormous -- the confinement has to continue,” Veran said. Still, he said there was some reason for optimism. “We can see that the confinement has a palpable effect in France, we’re starting to feel it.”

France joins Spain and Germany in reporting some improvements, after almost three weeks of lockdown that have tripped up European countries’ economies. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the pandemic has caused the worst economic shock in France since 1929, and economic contraction will be much greater than the 2.2% decline in 2009.

Following weeks of measures aimed at limiting contact between people, Europe’s governments are seeing growing evidence that shutting down much of the economy is containing the disease. Italy reported the lowest number of coronavirus infections in nearly three weeks. Italy, Spain, France and the U.K. have suffered the most deaths worldwide, accounting for nearly 60% of all fatalities.

The number of intensive-care patients rose by 94 to 7,072, the smallest increase since at least March 18. France has boosted its intensive-care beds to more than 8,000 from 5,000 at the start of the outbreak, according to Jerome Salomon, the head of the country’s public health agency, who has repeatedly highlighted ICU admissions as the best gauge of the outbreak’s intensity and impact on the health-care system.

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