France reports record high daily coronavirus cases

Country has registered almost 180,000 infections, one of the highest one-day tallies worldwide

People at the Eiffel Tower in Paris on December 21. Wearing masks outside is again mandatory in France. AP

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France on Tuesday reported a record high of 179,807 new confirmed coronavirus cases in 24 hours, one of the highest one-day tallies worldwide.

It is also the highest number of new daily infections in Europe, Covidtracker.fr data shows.

Since the start of the pandemic, only the US and India have reported average daily new cases above 200,000.

On Monday, the US reported more than 505,000 new Covid-19 cases.

Britain on Tuesday reported a record 129,471 new cases of Covid-19, but the data did not include figures for Scotland and Northern Ireland because of differences in reporting practices over the Christmas holiday period.

France's previous record of 104,611 was set on Saturday, after the 86,852 high of November 11, 2020, was broken with two consecutive days of more than 90,000 new cases at the end of last week.

The seven-day moving average of new cases in France, which smoothes out daily reporting irregularities, rose to a new high of 87,500.

On Sunday and Monday, the Health Ministry reported about 30,000 new cases a day.

On Monday, the government announced new measures to curb infections, including limits on the size of big gatherings, a ban on eating and drinking on public transport and mandatory masks outdoors.

Despite the jump in new cases, the number of patients in hospital with Covid-19 remained well below record levels.

Covid-19 patients in intensive care rose by 83 to 3,416 on Tuesday, well below the highs of more than 7,000 in early April 2020.