France becomes fourth country with more than 20,000 coronavirus deaths

A man, wearing a protective face mask, rides past people queuing outside a Biocoop grocery in Fontenay-sous-Bois as the spread of the coronavirus disease continues in France, April 20, 2020. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

PARIS (Reuters) - France on Monday officially registered more than 20,000 deaths from the coronavirus, becoming the fourth country to pass that threshold after Italy, Spain and the United States, and the pace of increase in fatalities and infections sped up again after several days of slowing.

"The epidemic is very deadly and is far from over," France's public health chief Jerome Salomon told a news briefing, adding that the death toll was now higher than that of the heat wave in the summer of 2003.