PARIS, March 5 (Reuters) – Around six percent of COVID-19 cases in France are from the more contagious variants first found in Brazil and South Africa, French Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Friday.

Veran also told BFM TV that France was doing all it could to avoid a new national lockdown, although the government would keep all options open, and that there were reasons to believe France’s COVID situation would improve in 4-6 weeks time as more of its population gets vaccinated against the virus.

On Thursday, French Prime Minister Jean Castex said around 60% of French COVID-19 cases were from the variant first discovered in England. (Reporting by Benoit Van Overstraeten and Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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