France may have reached peak of 5th COVID wave: Minister

France may have reached the peak of the fifth epidemic wave of COVID-19, the country’s health minister said Tuesday, as health experts projected the beginning of the sixth wave in January.  

“It seems that we have reached an epidemic peak in our country, a very high peak, 50,000 contaminations per day now. It is the highest that we have experienced since the start of the pandemic,” Olivier Veran told lawmakers in the National Assembly.

Veran said the country’s health crisis is likely to worsen with increased hospital admissions in the next two weeks.

His statement of concern comes amid the detection of cases of the omicron variant, which is considered to be highly contagious.