PARIS: Deaths from the new coronavirus in France passed 28,000 Sunday, the health ministry announced, as officials tried to contain outbreaks in two abattoirs. The latest daily toll, of 483, the largest in several weeks, was made up mainly of deaths in care homes: 429 deaths, compared to only 54 in hospital. Those numbers took France’s total number of deaths from the virus to 28,108. France’s health directorate, the DGS, was not able to tell AFP why there had been a sudden rise in the figures for deaths at care homes. The figures had been updated from those provided by the regional health authorities, they said. The figure for care home deaths have been corrected several times in recent days, reflecting the challenges officials face in collecting and collating the data.

Abattoir ‘clusters’
Health officials meanwhile were battling to contain two outbreaks of the virus at abattoirs that are so far known to have infected around a hundred people. One abattoir is in the central Val de Loire region near the city of Orleans. The other is in the northwestern region of Brittany. Regional health officials said 63 of the 209 workers at the Breton slaughterhouse had so far tested positive for the virus. At the slaughterhouse in Fleury-les-Aubrais, near Orleans, officials there said they had detected a “cluster” of 34 cases among the 400 workers. Another 40 were tested on Sunday with others following on Tuesday. 

“According to the company’s human resources department, there were masks, gels, temperature readings at the entrance to the slaughterhouse and it seems that the protocol was followed,” said regional prefect Pierre Pouessel. The overall picture in France, however, with a continuing fall in both hospital deaths and admissions for the virus, was better news. Four regions, in the north and the east of the country - including the Paris region - account for 74 percent of the number of people being treated in hospital. Since the virus arrived in France, 98,569 people have been hospitalized, of whom 17,500 had to be treated in intensive care. More thatn 61,000 have recovered and been allowed home.
Car hazard lights

Catholics in France’s virus hit east on Sunday gathered for their first mass in weeks, praying and singing hymns from the relative safety of their cars. Some 500 believers gathered in Chalons-en-Champagne in about 200 cars parked at least a meter from one another outside the city’s main exhibition hall. “It is a triumph of life,” bishop Francois Touvet told AFP, adding that the initiative was a first for France and went ahead only after the authorities gave special permission.

It was held on the seventh day of a progressive easing of France’s strict lockdown instituted in mid-March to brake the spread of the virus which has killed more than 28,000 people in France. Under new, looser regulations, people are allowed to leave their homes and travel up to 100 kilometers. But gatherings of more than 10 people remain prohibited as the country seeks to progressively get back to normal without unleashing a new infection wave. At Sunday’s service in eastern France, hard hit by coronavirus, strict rules applied. Cars were checked at the entrance to ensure each occupant was wearing a mask and had access to virus-killing hand gel.

No more than four people were allowed per car, and no-one was allowed to get out. At the front of the car park, a pulpit complete with a cross and a statue of the Virgin Mary had been erected on a truck trailer, from where Touvet delivered his sermon over a microphone. At the foot of the stage, a dozen priests and deacons sat arranged in a semi-circle, their chairs carefully spaced a safe distance from each other. Worshippers who wished to receive communion were asked to switch on their car’s hazard lights, and to clean their hands with sanitizing gel. 

Priests wearing face masks, their hands also disinfected, then went around from car to car. “Clean hands give the communion, clean hands receive it,” said Touvet. “An exceptional measure for an exceptional situation.” For Marie-Lorene, a 21-year-old resident of Chalons-en-Champagne, the mass was an opportunity to pray “for all those who have died of coronavirus for all those who fight against coronavirus and then for all the people who help the sick”. Touvet told the faithful they would celebrate Pentecost together at the end of the month, either in church, “or here again”, to worship “in this world wounded and overwhelmed by a small, invisible virus”.- Agencies