Coronavirus variant accounts for up to 20% of cases in Paris - hospital executive

By Sudip Kar-Gupta and Benoit Van Overstraeten

PARIS (Reuters) - The highly contagious variant of the coronavirus first detected in Britain now accounts for up to 20% of infections in the wider Paris region, a leading hospital executive said on Tuesday, calling for more restrictive measures to rein in the disease.

France's main COVID-19 indicators have reached two-month highs on average on Monday but the government, who will hold a dedicated COVID cabinet meeting on Wednesday, is still hoping to avoid a third national lockdown.

"We have initial results in the Paris region and they are not good", Remi Salomon, head of the medical committee of Paris hospitals group AP-HP told franceinfo radio. "We were at 6% to 7% on Jan 7, we reached 15% to 20% last week."

"The variant will take over, we know it and that's why the current measures will not be enough", Salomon said, reminding this variant is 50% to 70% percent more contagious than the initial strand of the virus.

Last week President Emmanuel Macron held off from imposing a third national lockdown, instead toughening COVID-19 border controls and reinforcing a nightly curfew.

Earlier in the day, Tourism Minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne told French citizens not to cancel their vacation plans "for now".

The ski lifts of the country's mountain resorts will nonetheless remain closed throughout the February school holidays, that kick off Friday, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

French health authorities reported 4,347 new coronavirus infections over the previous 24 hours on Monday but the seven-day moving average of daily new cases, which evens out daily reporting irregularities, now stands at 20,515, the highest since Nov 23.

France's cumulative total of cases is at 3,201,461, the sixth-highest in the world and its COVID death toll, at 76,512, is the seventh-highest.

After a slow start, the country's vaccination program has gained some traction with about 1.54 million COVID-19 first shots delivered as of Feb 1.

France's main health authority is due to approve AstraZeneca's vaccine later in the day. Green light has so far been given to the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, and Moderna.

(Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten and Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Richard Lough, Alexandra Hudson)