France reports highest daily COVID-19 case numbers of pandemic

France on Thursday recorded its highest number of new COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began, as the country deals with a fifth wave of the virus.

More than 91,000 new coronavirus cases were confirmed in France on Thursday, according to Reuters.

“Today’s figures are not good,” said French Health Minister Olivier Véran. France will likely see 100,000 new daily cases soon, Varén warned earlier this week.

French health officials also recorded 179 new deaths and 61 COVID-19 hospitalizations in the intensive care unit due to COVID-19 on Thursday. Reuters noted that French President Emmanuel Macron is hoping to avoid enacting new restrictions and mandates, but the country’s government has said that all options would be considered.

Last week, French Prime Minister Jean Castex warned that the omicron variant was “spreading at lightning speed” throughout Europe and said the new strain will likely be dominant in France by early next year. Due to the rapid spread of the variant, France restricted travel from the U.K. last week, a move that the British government criticized as being not “effective or proportionate.”

Castex also said the government would be taking steps to address vaccine hesitancy, saying it was “not acceptable that the refusal of a few million French people to be vaccinated puts the life of an entire country at risk.”