Paris, Oct 31 (IANS): France, on the first day of national lockdown to stem the second wave of coronavirus pandemic, reported 49,215 more cases of coronavirus infection, according to data released by the Public Health Agency.

The accumulative cases since the outbreak of the pandemic reached 1,331,984. With 256 more people losing their lives to the disease in the past 24 hours, the death toll caused by COVID-19 hit 36,565, the data released on Friday revealed, Xinhua news agency reported.

Some 22,153 people are currently hospitalized for COVID-19 infections, including 3,368 in intensive care.

France started a second national confinement from Thursday midnight. People go out only for work, health emergency, essential family needs or short exercise near home. Non-essential shops including bars, cafes, gyms and restaurants are closed.

The government expects that a one-month lockdown would help cut the daily number of COVID-19 infections to 5,000, but experts believed that new restrictions need more time to bear fruit.

As the world is caught in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries including France, Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the United States are racing to find a vaccine.

According to the website of the World Health Organization, as of October 19, there were 198 COVID-19 candidate vaccines being developed worldwide, and 44 of them were in clinical trials.