France registered a record number of new coronavirus cases Saturday, exceeding the 100,000 mark for the first time since the pandemic began.
Data from the public health department showed 104,611 new cases were registered. The figure has skyrocketed since Dec. 22 when the number of daily cases was 84,272.
The worsening figures in France follow the deteriorating health situation in the UK, which crossed the 100,000 mark on Dec. 22.
The surge is driven by the detection of the highly contagious omicron variant in the last week of November when the number of infections began to tick upward. On Dec. 4, contaminations crossed 50,000 cases.
Health authorities had earlier projected reaching the milestone of 100,00 daily cases by the end of the month.
The advancement is partly due to the result of widespread testing in the run-up to the Christmas holidays. As of Thursday, nearly 1.55 million tests were conducted in 24 hours.
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