According to AFP, the head of France's health service has said that the coronavirus outbreak in France is “very worrying” and “deteriorating very fast".

“The number of cases double every three days,” Jerome Salomon said on France Inter.

“I want our citizens to realise that there are people who are sick, who are in intensive care and that [their number] runs into hundreds,” he said.

“There is a real worry that the speed of the outbreak could saturate hospitals and this is something we absolutely want to avoid,” Salomon said, singling out the badly affected eastern region of Alsace near Germany and the greater Paris area.

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