the milestone of one million daily contaminations exceeded a few hours before the New Year

The symbolic milestone of one million daily infections 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 festivities on which the pandemic will weigh once again.

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 recorded between April 23 and 29, 2021.

Faced with this “tsunami” of contamination which is putting health systems under pressure, many cities, such as Paris or Athens, have decided to frame New Year’s celebrations, in addition to measures taken in recent days to try to reduce the circulation of the coronavirus.

And some have even canceled the planned festivities, like many Brazilian cities.

In France, the threshold of 200,000 new cases in 24 hours was exceeded Thursday for the second day in a row. In Paris, the mask becomes mandatory in the streets again on Friday and the drinking establishments will not be able to open after 2:00 a.m. on January 1 and 2.

In Canada, Quebec has announced a nighttime curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for an unspecified duration, starting on New Year’s Eve, and private gatherings will now be limited to the family bubble. Ontario for its part imposed a gauge in concert halls and stadiums, when British Columbia has already banned all New Year’s celebrations.

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 are limited to six people until January 16. And music is prohibited there.

In Spain, the festivities are canceled in most regions, and nine of the ten most populous cities 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 town hall canceled New Year’s celebrations and Cyprus banned dancing in public places.

For his part, Pope Francis has given up his traditional New Year’s visit to the nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square on Friday.

In Germany, where nightclubs will remain closed for New Year’s Eve, private meetings of more than ten people are prohibited, even for the vaccinated. For the unvaccinated, the limit drops to two members of different outbreaks.

But German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has warned that the new restrictions will “not be enough” in the face of the Omicron variant.

– Decreased deaths –

More than 85% of current contaminations 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 breaking contamination records, such as Iceland or Finland. In Denmark, which currently has the largest number of new cases in the world in relation to its population, the threshold of 20,000 additional contaminations was exceeded Thursday for the second day in a row.

Spain also smashed its record Thursday, with 161,688 new cases in 24 hours.

With more than 265,000 daily cases on average for a week, the United States also faces a record of infections.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday spoke of a “tsunami” placing “immense pressure on exhausted health workers and health systems on the brink of collapse”, two years after the start of a pandemic with more than 5.4 million deaths.

British hospitals, “on a war footing” against Omicron, will set up temporary structures to open up to 4,000 additional beds to prepare for a wave of admissions. In England, more than 10,000 people were hospitalized with the Covid, a first since the beginning of March.

So far, the explosion of the pandemic has not resulted in an increase in the number of deaths, on the contrary down for three weeks in the world.

South Africa, where the new variant was detected last month, announced Thursday that it passed the peak of the Omicron wave without a significant increase in the number of deaths. “A marginal increase in the number of deaths has been observed in all provinces,” said the South African presidency, announcing the lifting of certain restrictions and in particular the night curfew.

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