France records 471 more virus deaths in hospitals as total toll tops 5,000

France recorded 471 new coronavirus hospital deaths and 884 deaths in retirement homes, the country's chief medical adviser told a press conference on Thursday.

France's Director General of Health Jérôme Salomon announced the figures during a daily press conference making for the first time a distinction between deaths recorded in hospitals and those in retirement homes.

He said that a provisional tally showed that around 884 people in total had died in nursing homes.

He added that the number of coronavirus-related deaths in hospitals rose 12% on Thursday to 4,503 from Wednesday.

This makes for a total of 5,387 lives lost to coronavirus in France, so far.

Salomon cautioned that coronavirus deaths in retirement homes could turn out to be higher than the reported number as authorities were still gathering data from across the country.

Salomon said the number of known infections rose nationwide to 59,105 from 56,989. The number of patients requiring life support rose to 6,399 from 6,017 on Wednesday.

According to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 resource centre, the global death toll on Thursday topped 50,000.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)