World tops one million new daily Covid cases

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World tops one million new daily Covid cases

AFP
30 Dec 2021

PARIS: The number of daily new Covid cases worldwide has crossed one million for the first time since the pandemic began two years ago, according to an AFP tally Thursday.

The figures for 23-29 December, the highest since the virus first emerged at the end of 2019, are based on tolls given daily by health authorities in each country.

More than 7.3 million new Covid-19 cases were detected around the world in the last seven days -- an average of 1,045,000 infections every day -- following a surge in cases of the highly contagious Omicron variant.

The numbers are much higher than the last record before the current wave when daily cases stood at 817,000 on average between April 23 and 29.

A large share of the less serious or asymptomatic cases remain undetected despite ramped up testing in many countries since the pandemic began.

Also, testing policy varies from one country to another.

Global infections worldwide -- on the rise since the middle of October -- shot up by 44 percent the previous week over a week earlier.


A Covid "tsunami" threatens to overwhelm healthcare systems, the World Health Organization warned on Wednesday.

"This is and will continue to put immense pressure on exhausted health workers, and health systems on the brink of collapse," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

More than 85 percent of the new infections occurred in two regions worst hit by Omicron -- Europe, which recorded 4,022,000 cases in the last seven days, up 36 percent over the preceding week, and the United States and Canada which had a combined 2,264,000 cases in the same period, up 83 percent.

However Asia saw 268,000 cases, or a 12 percent drop.

Covid deaths worldwide have continued to decline for three weeks now with 6,400 in the past week -- a fall of six percent over the previous week.

A record 14,800 daily deaths were registered between January 20 and 26.

 

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France sixth country with more than 10m Covid infections

 

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Tempers fray in Australia as Covid-19 cases hit new highs

Australia's daily COVID-19 cases hit a record high for a third day on Wednesday, further straining hospital resources and testing facilities as public anger grew over the handling of the fast-moving outbreak of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

Many Australians, already unhappy about long queues at public testing centres and a shortage of at-home tests, were further incensed when news broke that tennis world number one Novak Djokovic had been given a medical exemption to enter the country.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, under pressure at the start of an election year, announced a further relaxing of testing requirements to shorten long lines, and provided access to free rapid antigen tests for pensioners, the poor and veterans.

 

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Covid-19 is continuing to spread around the world, with more than 300 million confirmed cases and more than five million deaths reported across almost 200 countries.

The US, India and Brazil have seen the highest number of confirmed cases, followed by the UK, France and Russia.
Very few places have been left untouched.

 

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MOSCOW: The Russian government on Saturday reported a record number of new coronavirus cases after the Kremlin warned of a looming surge in cases driven by the Omicron variant.

An online portal dedicated to the coronavirus outbreak registered 57,212 new daily cases, surging past the previous record set Friday of 49,513.

Following a strict but brief national lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic, Russia has held back on curbs hoping instead to protect its struggling economy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned last week that the country needed to ready for an Omicron-driven surge, calling for more testing and vaccinations.

In the capital Moscow -- the epicentre of the virus outbreak in Russia -- there was a record 16,094 new cases.

Several vaccines developed in Russia have been freely available for months but still only around half of the country is fully innoculated due to widespread vaccine scepticism.

Putin has previously said Russia's eminent Sputnik V vaccine could be "more effective" than Western-developed jabs.

Russian government figures show 325,433 deaths from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic -- the highest death toll in Europe.

Those figures are contradicted by state statistics agency Rosstat, which counts Covid deaths under a broader definition and says fatalities are around double the official figure.

Globally, Russia has the fourth-highest number of virus-related fatalities, according to an AFP tally, after the United States, Brazil and India.