Paris, Nov 4 (IANS): Another 854 people have lost their lives to Covid-19 in France, bringing the death toll since the outbreak of the epidemic in the country to 38,289, showed data released by the health authorities.

This death toll reported on Tuesday was the highest since April 15 and more than double Monday's 416, Xinhua news agency reported citing the data.

In the past day, 36,330 new infections were confirmed, bringing the accumulative total infections to 1,502,763.

The Covid-19 patients hospitalised increased by 1,122 to 26,265, including 3,878 in intensive care, up by 148 in a day.

Some patients in the northern region of Hauts-de-France would be transferred to Germany as well as other parts of France for treatment in the coming days because hospitals in this heavily-affected region are under the pressure of saturation, said the country's hospitals federation.

France is on the fourth day of its second nationwide lockdown to stem the second wave of the epidemic.

The authorities and experts had warned that, given the fact that symptoms may appear 2 to 14 days after exposure to the virus, it would take days or even weeks before epidemic indicators go downward thanks to the restrictive measures.

People in the country can go out only for work, health or family emergency, necessity shopping or one-hour exercise near their home. Non-essential businesses are closed, a move contested by some mayors.

Prime Minister Jean Castex criticised that these mayors "violate the rules of the Republic" by issuing orders authorising the reopening of non-essential businesses.