Paris, Nov 19 (IANS): Amid a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, France reported 28,383 new Covid-19 cases and 425 deaths in the last 24 hours, which according to health authorities were a decrease in single-day tallies.

Wednesday's figures took the overall caseload and death toll to 2,115,717 and 46,772, respectively, reports Xinhua news agency.

On Tuesday, the country had reported 45,522 new cases and 425 deaths.

The number of hospital admissions also dropped for a second day in a row as the French government was preparing for a gradual process to return to normalcy during year-end holidays.

A total of 328 patients left the hospital in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of hospitalized patients down to 32,842.

The number of people in intensive care units, a key indicator to test the health system's ability to handle the sanitary crisis, fell by 79 to 4,775.

Since September, the Covid-19 situation spiraled to levels much higher than during the first wave of the pandemic, dragging France into its second country-wide lockdown on October 30.

The extra anti-coronavirus rules are effective until early December, although the government could impose more restrictions beyond the initial deadline if curbs fail to put a brake on the virus resurgence.

"If the first results and the first glimmers of hope are visible, they are the result of the French people's mobilization. Nothing would be worse than destroying the results that have been achieved," Gabriel Attal, a government spokesperson, said on Wednesday.

"To relax our efforts now is to take the risk of having done them for nothing," he told the press after a weekly cabinet meeting.

President Emmanuel Macron will address the nation next week to unveil new rules after the lockdown ends on December 1.