In France, Health Minister Olivier Veran pointed to what he called a worrying increase in the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care. More infections among the oldest people means there will probably be even more hospitalizations and deaths in coming weeks, French authorities said. Because people who are sick usually take a few weeks to get worse, there’s a time lag before new infections begin to cause a shift in mortality rate. Veran appealed directly to French seniors, asking them to better protect themselves by cutting back on the number of people they see every day because they are “the most fragile in the face of Covid.”