France is battling a spike in Covid-19 patients in intensive care units as it prepares to go into a third nationwide lockdown, The Canberra Times reports.

On Friday, April 2, there was another 145 people moved into intensive care units, the highest daily increase in five months, with 5254 people now in ICU with coronavirus.

The risk of emergency wards being unable to cope was one of the main reasons for President Emmanuel Macron to order a third nationwide lockdown this week.

After unsuccessfully trying to contain the virus with a curfew and regional lockdowns, France will start a third lockdown next week, with schools and non-essential businesses closed nationwide for four weeks.

Macron said the number of ICU beds will be raised from 7000 to over 10,000. At the peak of the first lockdown in spring 2020, France saw a high of 7148 Covid-19 patients in ICUs, but that fell back to a few hundred in August following the strict first lockdown.

During November's less restrictive lockdown, ICU numbers peaked at just under 5000, but since then they have only briefly dipped below 3000 in December. With new infections rising sharply, doctors expect the third wave of the virus will peak in the coming two weeks.