The world welcomed New Year 2022 with celebrations on one side and a growing concern about Omicron on the other side.
With new hope, the New Year 2022 was celebrated worldwide with spectacular fireworks. Though many countries have either muted or cancelled the New Year celebrations, the fireworks display is seen in many cities.
Auckland (New Zealand) became the first major city to welcome New Year with traditional and highly anticipated fireworks lit up the night sky in the city.
Sydney (Australia) followed the celebrations with a stunning fireworks display over Opera House and Harbour Bridge.
As these celebrations are on, the omicron variant is surging at a faster rate. The United States and France have recorded high single day cases. The US for the past 2 days is recording the highest number of COVID -19 cases. Despite the fact that the US’s 62% (which counts to 200 million approximately) of the population getting fully vaccinated, the country recorded 580,000 infections on a single day.
Also, Read | Omicron 6 Times More Transmissible Than Delta
France also sees the biggest rise with 2,08,000 cases reported in a single day which is the highest in Europe according to the Covid tracker report.
The Covid-19 situation of India worsened overnight with states recording a huge jump in the number of Covid-19 cases taking the tally to 13,154. The latest variant of SARS-CoV-2 also known as Omicron is more transmissible than the Delta variant. The present R-value of Covid in India is 1.22 which means every 100 infected people can spread the infection to 122 people. But, Delta is still the predominant variant in India and not Omicron.
To tackle the Omicron surge, Israel has approved the 4th vaccine dose.
Russia’s overall pandemic death toll reached 658,634 making it the world’s second-highest affected country.
South Africa says its Omicron Covid-19 wave Has peaked.
According to WHO’s COVID-19 figures, the number of cases recorded worldwide increased by 11% last week (December 20-26) when compared with the previous week.
WHO (World Health Organization) chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed concerns over a surge in Covid-19 cases across the globe.