The number of people hospitalised for COVID-19 in France went up for the third day in a row on Tuesday, a trend not seen for almost two months, according to French health authorities.

The number of hospitalisations rose by 15 people over 24 hours to 6,483. That is five times lower than the pandemic peak of 33,497 reported in November 2020.

But with the reproduction rate creeping above 1.0 again, and the virus still raging in some parts of Europe including Britain, some fear a fifth wave of the pandemic in France.

A reproduction rate above 1.0 indicates the pandemic is accelerating. As of Oct 16, the latest data available, the rate had reached 1.05 in France versus 0.71 at mid-September.

France registered 5,934 new confirmed cases over 24 hours, which marks a slight increase compared to a week earlier.

With close to 7.1 million infections reported since the outbreak of the pandemic in February 2020, France has the seventh-highest total globally.