Health authorities are only counting those who die in hospitals and are not performing post-mortems on unconfirmed cases. France's top health official, Jérôme Salomon, said hospital cases "probably represent a small part of the overall mortality".

News reports suggest nursing homes could be suffering a large number of deaths not included in the figures. The president of the Association of Directors for the Elderly told Ouest France newspaper 100,000 residents could be at risk and asked for government aid.