France: COVID-19 reports spike, 16 total dead

PARIS

The number of coronavirus cases in France under intensive care has seen a rapid rise, increasing to 45 on Sunday after seeing 39 only two days prior.

The death toll in the country rose to 16 and the number of confirmed cases of the virus jumped to 949, most of them reported in the Oise and Haut-Rhin regions in the north.

France's Director-General of Health, Jerome Salomon, announced the statistics in a weekend briefing, with three members of the country's National Assembly falling ill.

The latest reported legislator to have contracted COVID-19 remains unnamed.

Jean-Luc Reitzer, a conservative parliamentarian from Alsace, was the first from the National Assembly reported ill, hospitalized on Friday in intensive care in a hospital in Mulhouse, near the Swiss and German border. His condition has reportedly stabilized.

A worker from the assembly's snack bar was also infected on Thursday.

With the escalating cases, President Emmanuel Macron has said an epidemic in France would be "inevitable," pledging that the country was ready, with additional medical emergency units open in every department and daily press briefings issued by the Ministry of Health.

First detected in Wuhan, China, in December, the virus has spread to more than 80 countries.

The global death toll is around 3,500, with more than 100,000 confirmed cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

As part of efforts to contain the outbreak, governments have closed borders and suspended land and air travel with the worst-hit countries such as China, Iran, and Italy.

After declaring the outbreak an international health emergency in January, the WHO last month updated the global risk level to "very high."