The symbolic milestone of one million daily contaminations by COVID-19 in the world was crossed for the first time during the week of December 23 to 29, a few hours from the New Year’s festivities on which the pandemic will weigh once again.
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On average, 1,045,000 new daily cases were detected over the period, up 46% from the previous week, according to an AFP count on Thursday established from reports communicated by each country.
The previous record of 817,000 daily cases was set before the current wave, between April 23 and 29, 2021.
Faced with this “tsunami” of contaminations which is putting pressure on health systems, many capitals and cities, from Paris to Mexico City, via Athens or Barcelona, have decided to organize New Year’s celebrations, in addition to the measures taken. in recent days in an attempt to reduce the circulation of the coronavirus. Or even cancel the planned festivities, like many Brazilian cities, such as São Paulo, the largest metropolis in Latin America.
In France, where a record of more than 200,000 new cases in 24 hours was announced on Wednesday, nightclubs, closed since December 10, will remain closed for at least the first three weeks of January.
In Paris, the mask becomes mandatory again in the streets on Friday as in almost the entire Paris region and drinking establishments will not be able to open after 2 a.m. on Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 January.
In Greece, bars and restaurants will have to close at 2 a.m. on New Year’s Eve, an exceptional measure because on other days, they will close at midnight. Tables in restaurants will be limited to six people from Thursday until January 16. And no question of sound environment, music is prohibited.
In Spain, the festivities are canceled in most regions and nine of the ten most populous cities in the country will not celebrate the “campanadas”, the bells of the passage to the new year. Tradition has it that the Spaniards swallow twelve grapes at the sound of the stroke of midnight.
Only Madrid maintained a minimum ceremony in the famous Puerta del Sol square, with a capacity limited to 7,000 people – masked -, against 18,000 in 2019, in the pre-pandemic period.
In Mexico City, the city hall canceled New Year’s celebrations and Cyprus banned dancing in public places.
In Germany, where nightclubs will also remain closed for New Year’s Eve, private meetings of more than ten people are prohibited, even for vaccinated and cured people. For the unvaccinated, the limit falls to two members of different outbreaks.
Despite these new restrictions, German Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach warned that the measures that came into force on Tuesday were “not enough” against the Omicron variant, which should cause a “sharp rise” in cases in the coming weeks.
Falling dead
The Omicron variant, circulating at the same time as its predecessor, Delta, is currently causing a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases in many European countries.
More than 85% of current infections are concentrated in two regions where Omicron is strongly present: Europe (4,022,000 cases in the last seven days) as well as the United States and Canada (2,264,000 cases ). Only Asia (268,000 cases, -12%) has seen the pandemic recede over the past week.
In Europe, several countries are currently breaking records, starting with Denmark, currently the country in the world with the most new cases of COVID-19 compared to its population (23,228 cases).
Same thing in Spain, yet one of the champions of vaccination, with 100,760 new cases in 24 hours.
With more than 265,000 daily cases on average over the past week, the United States also faces a record number of infections, with Omicron as the dominant variant.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday evoked a “tsunami” putting “immense pressure on an exhausted health workforce and health systems on the verge of collapse”, two years after the start of a pandemic with more than 5.4 million deaths.
British hospitals, “on a war footing” against the Omicron variant, will set up temporary structures to open up to 4,000 additional beds to prepare for a wave of admissions, announced Thursday the services health. In England in particular, more than 10,000 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, a first since early March.
So far, the explosion of the pandemic has not translated into an overall increase in the death toll, which has been declining for three weeks worldwide.
In China, which records an epidemic outbreak within 40 days of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the measures are more radical.
After the city of Xi’an, subjected for eight days to quarantine and which is now experiencing supply difficulties, several tens of thousands of inhabitants of a district of the city of Yan’an, 300 kilometers from Xi ‘ year, were confined, too.