PARIS (Reuters) – The number of people who died from coronavirus infection in France rose by 28 to 29,575 on Wednesday, a figure more in line with the current trend after a spike in deaths on Tuesday due to the inclusion of weekly data for nursing homes.

Yet the number of new confirmed cases of the virus was at a four-day high of 458, at 158,174, and slightly above the daily average of 434 seen over the last seven days.

On Tuesday, the death toll was up by 111 but that figure included 73 fatalities in nursing homes. If only hospital deaths are taken in account, the average daily increase stands at 26.

The ministry said that the number of people in hospital for COVID-19 infections fell by 268 to 10,267 and the number of people in intensive care fell by 48 to 772. Both numbers have been on a downtrend for about 10 weeks.