The pandemic has killed nearly 5.5 million people worldwide since the end of December 2019, according to a report established on Tuesday by AFP from official sources.
EUROPE
3 million Britons didn’t show up for work in the 1st week of January
Three million Britons didn’t show up for work the first January week. The number of contaminations with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has increased considerably at the start of the year, forcing many people to go into quarantine. According to data from the British office GoodShape, relayed by the Bloomberg agency, around 1.3 billion pounds (1.6 billion euros) would have been lost as a result of this widespread absenteeism. Companies and public services have indeed seen their activities reduced. The working population in the United Kingdom is estimated at 35 million people.
Given the shortages of staff observed in health care and education, the United Kingdom is considering easing the rules regarding self-isolation after contact with an infected person. Patients with the omicron variant would also be less contagious, making it possible to shorten quarantine.
More than 100 million cases in Europe
Current epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic, Europe has exceeded the milestone of 100 million cases recorded since the discovery of the virus in December 2019, i.e. more than a third of the total contamination in the world, according to an AFP count stopped on Saturday at 6:45 p.m. GMT.
With more than 4.9 million contaminations recorded over the past seven days, (59% more than the previous week), the region is currently facing unprecedented levels of contamination.
Denmark will offer a 4th dose of vaccine to the most vulnerable
Hit hard by the Omicron wave, Denmark announced on Wednesday offer a fourth dose of anti-Covid vaccine to the most vulnerable.
“It’s a new chapter with the decision to offer a fourth dose to the most vulnerable citizens”, who have received their third injection at the start of the recall campaign in the fall, Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said at a press conference. He also announced the reopening on Sunday of cultural institutions closed since December 19.
Record contamination in Germany
Germany has recorded more than 80,000 cases of coronavirus infection in one day for the first time, according to figures published on Wednesday by the Robert Koch health monitoring institute (RKI). The Institute reported 80,430 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, an increase of more than 21,500 from the previous week.
Incidence over the past seven days has also increased nationally although data is still considered incomplete after the Christmas and New Year holidays when fewer tests were carried out and therefore fewer cases have been reported.
On Wednesday, 407.5 cases had been recorded per 100,000 inhabitants over a period of one week, against 387.9 the day before. A week ago, the nationwide incidence was 258.6, the RKI continues.
The number of daily deaths stood at 384 against 346 a week earlier. So far, 114,735 people have died in Germany after contracting the coronavirus.
France: hospitalizations still on the rise
The pressure due to the fifth wave of Covid is further accentuated in French hospitals, which welcome more than 23,000 patients – including nearly 4,000 in critical care – against around 19,600 last week, according to the authorities. As in many countries, infections in France have experienced a meteoric rise under the pressure of the extremely contagious Omicron variant.
But it is less dangerous than the previous variants of the virus and the patients it infects stay in hospital for a shorter time than those infected with the Delta variant, according to the French government.
The number of new confirmed cases stands at 368,149, a new record if we only take into account the statements communicated each evening, according to the latest figures communicated Tuesday evening by the agency National Public Health France.
But these data can be reviewed by the health authorities, who thus established a posteriori that the milestone of 400,000 new cases (409,370) had been crossed on January 3.
French hospitals welcome 23,371 patients with Covid (of which 3,149 were admitted in 24 hours), compared to around 19,600 a week ago.
The number of patients also continues to increase in critical care, which treats the most serious cases, in particular in intensive care, with 3,969 patients, including 492 new admissions. This closely watched indicator has continued to progress since the start of the fifth wave of the Covid epidemic in France last November.
In 24 hours, 270 people were killed by the disease, bringing the total number of deaths to 125,988 since the start of the epidemic.
Learning to “live with” the virus, says London
British Health Minister Sajid Javid said on Saturday that new restrictions would be “a very last resort” in England despite a surge in Omicron cases, saying that we had to learn to “live with” the coronavirus .
“Alert threshold” in Guadeloupe
The number of new cases of Covid-19 has quadrupled in four days on the French island of Guadeloupe, a rate “well above the alert threshold”, the authorities announced.
As of December 31, the number of new cumulative cases over four days is 2,191 (compared to 543 cases over 7 days last week), for 18,300 people tested. 10-19 year olds and 20-39 year olds represent 65% of these new cases.
Omicron: Russia only has two weeks to prepare, according to Vladimir Putin
Russia, the most bereaved country in Europe by Covid-19, has only two weeks before being hit in turn by the Omicron variant, Russian President Vladimir Putin estimated on Wednesday. “We see what is happening in the world, and it shows that we have about two weeks to prepare,” said the master of the Kremlin, calling for accelerated testing and vaccination.
More than half of Europeans are likely to be affected by the Omicron variant within two months, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated on Tuesday. Russia is just emerging from a particularly deadly wave caused by the Delta variant.
For the time being, the authorities are struggling to convince the population to be immunized against the virus.
“Obviously, (the vaccine) Sputnik-V is sufficiently effective. Perhaps even more than the other vaccines used in the world”, he added, during a government meeting broadcast on Russian television.
Russia recorded more than 87,000 deaths linked to Covid-19 in November, according to the count of the national statistics agency Rosstat, a monthly record which brings to more than 600,000 (at the end of November) its total death toll.
These figures are much higher than those of the government, which are based on a very restrictive definition of deaths due to the coronavirus, and which reported on Wednesday of 318,432 deaths.
Even though the country has several vaccines of its own design, including Sputnik-V, less than half of the 144 mil lions of Russians are completely immune to date, according to the Gogov website page dedicated to the epidemic.
After a strict confinement in the spring of 2020, the authorities refused to put in place again place such a measure, despite new epidemic waves, in order to limit economic losses.
The deaths linked to the Covid pandemic also seem to have aggravated the Russian demographic decline.
According to Rosstat, the number of deaths exceeded that of live births by 945,000 in the first 11 months of 2021, compared to nearly 575,000 for the same period of the previous year.
AMERICA
Washington announces more tests to avoid close schools
The United States will increase the number of Covid-19 screening tests for schools by 10 million in order to be able to keep open as the wave of contamination threatens to render inel uctable a return to telecommuting, the White House announced. “These additional tests will help keep schools open,” the White House said in a statement. “We know how to keep school children and staff safe through vaccinations, reminders, indoor mask-wearing, social distancing, ventilation and testing in place.”
About 4% of schools in the United States have already had to close due to the wave of contamination.
Despite a record number of hospitalizations, the United States could being “on the threshold” of a transition period, after which it will become possible to “live with” the virus, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House adviser on the health crisis, on Tuesday.
The United States has exceeded its record number of people hospitalized with Covid-19, with nearly 146,000 infected patients occupying a hospital bed across the country.
Among them, nearly 24,000 were in intensive care, according to data from the US Department of Health on Tuesday.
The previous record stood at just over 142,000 people hospitalized on January 14, 2021, almost a year ago to the day.
The United States States are facing an impressive outbreak of the epidemic linked to this variant, which in a few weeks has become largely predominant. The country has recorded record numbers of contaminations since the end of December.
Around 18,500 people with Covid-19 are admitted to hospital every day on average, again a high, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC).
More than 2,600 flights canceled in the United States
Transport air remained very disrupted on Saturday in the United States, unfavorable weather in several regions of the country adding to the disruptions experienced by the world sky due to the outbreak of Covid cases linked to the Omicron variant.
The United States had 2,660 canceled flights since the start of the day, more than half of the 4,617 that have been canceled worldwide), around 7:30 p.m. (00:30 GMT), according to the site FlightAware.
AFRICA
Cases of Omicron detected in Niger
Twenty-seven cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 were detected at the end of December in Niger, a country until now relatively unaffected by the epidemic, the Nigerien Minister of Health announced on Saturday.
The detection of “these cases of the Omicron variant coincides with the increasingly increasing occurrence of covid-19 cases in recent days” across the country, noted the Minister, Illiassou Maïnassara.
ASIA
Omicron cases continue to rise in China ahead of the Winter Olympics
Three weeks before the start of the Olympics in winter in the Chinese capital, cases of coronavirus linked to the Omicron variant continue to multiply in the neighboring city of Tianjin. Tianjin authorities announced that 33 new cases of the highly contagious variant of the coronavirus were registered in the city on Wednesday. A second round of mass testing, in which the entire population of Tianjin will be screened, has been ordered.
The first cases of Omicron in China were discovered on Sunday in Tia njin, and health authorities said further infections were expected. The variant is likely to challenge China’s “zero Covid” strategy which involves mass testing, curfews, quarantine and isolation.
The Winter Olympics are due to start in Beijing on February 4.
Philippines: unvaccinated people banned from public transport in Manila
People who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 are no longer allowed to use public transport in Manila, the capital of the Philippines which is experiencing a surge in contamination, the transport department said on Wednesday. Commuters in this sprawling city of 13 million that is at Alert Level 3 on a scale of 5 must present physical or digital copies of their government-issued vaccination and ID cards, a he added.
Persons whose state of health prevents complete vaccination are exempt, but must present a medical certificate, the department further indicated.
Unvaccinated people who need to buy essential goods or who have to travel for compelling reasons are allowed to use public transport if they have a health pass from their community officials or other evidence to support their trip, he added.
President Rodrigo Duterte had recently ordered community leaders to keep unvaccinated people at home, except for essential travel, and to arrest them if they refused to follow the authorities’ rules.
More than 53 million people, more than 48% of the total population of the Philippines estimated at 110 million, have been vaccinated.
The total number of cases in the Philippines since the start of the pandemic exceeded three million on Tuesday, when more than 28,000 additional cases of Covid-19 were reported by the Ministry of Health . The death toll stands at 52,511.
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