Top French hospital official says coronavirus toll higher than official tally

The number of people in France who have died from coronavirus is much higher than the official daily government tally, which only accounts for those dying in hospitals and does not include those dying at home or in retirement homes, the head of the hospitals federation said.

"We only know the data provided by hospitals... The increase in the official data is already major, but the absolute numbers would no doubt be effectively much higher if we aggregated what is happening in retirement homes as well as the people who die at home," Frederic Valletoux, president of the French hospitals federation, said on France Info radio.

Photo: A French rescue team transfers a patient infected with coronavirus from Strasbourg University hospital to Pforzheim in Germany on March 24, 2020. © Christian Hartmann, Reuters 

(REUTERS)