France's new wave of COVID infections expected to peak end-July -scientist

PARIS (Reuters) - A new wave in France of COVID-19 infections fuelled by emerging variants of the disease should peak towards end-July, the French government's top scientific adviser Jean-Francois Delfraissy said on Thursday.

"The peak is not yet here, this peak of infections will probably be for end-July," Delfraissy told RTL radio.

"Then the BA.5 variant will reappear, if it is not overtaken by another variant ...in autumn," he added.

France reported new 124,724 coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, against 77,967 a week ago.

The French government also recommended this week that people should start wearing face masks again in crowded areas, especially in public transport, to counter the latest surge in COVID cases.

(Reporting by Myriam Rivet; Writing by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)