French troops transport virus patients

The French military is transporting dozens of COVID-19 patients a day around the country to relieve pressure on hard-hit Paris region.

It's part of a special military operation called 'Resilience' that France launched to respond to the challenge of the pandemic.

Medical trains, army airplanes and helicopters are used on a daily basis to transport patients.

Patients being treated in intensive care units (ICU), are being transferred to several hospitals in Brittany, or Normandy as western France is less impacted by the pandemic.

The operation aims at relieving hospitals in the Paris region, badly hit by the coronavirus that has claimed 5,387 lives in France.

The country has increased its capacity of 5,000 ICU beds before the crisis to 8,000 now and is aiming to up that to 14,000 ICU beds in the coming weeks, according to health authorities.

In the Paris region alone, the number of ICU beds went from 1,200 to 2,000 with almost the same number of patients needing intensive care.

The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.

The virus has caused a global pandemic that has sickened at least 1,018,948, killed 53,211 worldwide, crippled economies and forced restrictions on the movement of millions of people in an effort to stop the virus from spreading further and overwhelming health care systems.