<p>France recorded 18,254 new Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, health director Jerome Salomon said on Thursday, a tally not seen since Nov. 20 as infections showed an upward trend again.</p>.<p>He spoke at a news conference hours after Emmanuel Macron's office announced the French president had tested positive, prompting a track-and-trace effort across Europe following numerous meetings between Macron and EU leaders.</p>.<p>Salomon, who spoke of a "worrying development of the pandemic" a week before Christmas, said the reproduction rate of the disease had gone above 1 again, at 1.03. A level below 1 is needed to gradually contain the disease.</p>.<p>With more than 2.42 million cases, France is the fifth-worst infected country in the world.</p>.<p>After peaking at almost 87,000 on Nov. 7, the daily number of new cases had dramatically decreased in subsequent weeks, mainly thanks to a second national lockdown from Oct. 30 to Dec. 15.</p>.<p>But cases failed to fall below the 5,000 target set by the government, and so it replaced the lockdown with stricter measures than initially planned. The seven-day moving average of new cases, at 12,764, stands at a 20-day high.</p>.<p>The death toll was up by 258, at 59,619, the seventh-highest in the world, versus 289 on Wednesday and a seven-day moving average of 383.</p>
<p>France recorded 18,254 new Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, health director Jerome Salomon said on Thursday, a tally not seen since Nov. 20 as infections showed an upward trend again.</p>.<p>He spoke at a news conference hours after Emmanuel Macron's office announced the French president had tested positive, prompting a track-and-trace effort across Europe following numerous meetings between Macron and EU leaders.</p>.<p>Salomon, who spoke of a "worrying development of the pandemic" a week before Christmas, said the reproduction rate of the disease had gone above 1 again, at 1.03. A level below 1 is needed to gradually contain the disease.</p>.<p>With more than 2.42 million cases, France is the fifth-worst infected country in the world.</p>.<p>After peaking at almost 87,000 on Nov. 7, the daily number of new cases had dramatically decreased in subsequent weeks, mainly thanks to a second national lockdown from Oct. 30 to Dec. 15.</p>.<p>But cases failed to fall below the 5,000 target set by the government, and so it replaced the lockdown with stricter measures than initially planned. The seven-day moving average of new cases, at 12,764, stands at a 20-day high.</p>.<p>The death toll was up by 258, at 59,619, the seventh-highest in the world, versus 289 on Wednesday and a seven-day moving average of 383.</p>