Medical staff, wearing protective suits and face masks, prepare material for medical consultations at an emergency COVID-19 center inside a gymnasium in Taverny near Paris as the spread of the coronavirus disease continues in France, March 26, 2020. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
PARIS (Reuters) - France will extend a national lockdown until April 15 after reporting its biggest daily death toll from coronavirus, its prime minister said on Friday, and officials warned that hospitals around Paris could be overwhelmed in 48 hours.
"At the end of these first 10 days of confinement it is clear that we are only at the beginning of the epidemic wave," Edouard Philippe told reporters after a cabinet meeting. "It has overwhelmed the East and is now arriving in the Ile-de-France (Greater Paris region) and the Hauts de France (northeast)."
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