To date, 5 million 454 000 people have died from COVID-19 worldwide, and the total number of infections is 294 million. In the United States, one million people became infected in one day.
The new variant of the coronavirus has become another record holder for infection in the world. In the United States, one million people became infected in one day. This is the highest rate since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, who are monitoring the pandemic, said that 1 million 80 thousand new infections were detected in the United States on Monday. This is a world record since the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Behind so many cases is a new variant of the omicron coronavirus, which, while not as dangerous as the delta variant, is spreading rapidly.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also noted that an average of 672 children with COVID-19 were admitted to hospitals every day, the highest since the pandemic began. For the week ended December 30, there were more than 325 thousand of them, which is a 64% increase over the previous one.
At the largest U.S. pediatric hospital in the U.S., Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, the number of coronavirus-related hospitalizations has quadrupled in just the past two weeks. This is driven by the omicron.
The situation in France and Sweden also deteriorated sharply. For a week now, the French health service has been recording record epidemic data related to the spread of the omicron variant. New data shows the highest number of infections since the start of the pandemic: 270,000. The National Health Agency also noted that the threshold of 20,000 patients hospitalized due to COVID-19 has been exceeded for the first time in seven months. On average, 1145 more people are infected in hospitals. There are more than 3,600 coronavirus patients in the intensive care unit.
Vaccination campaign
The French government has introduced new sanitary restrictions and reduced the duration of quarantine for infected people to avoid paralysis of the country due to the fifth wave of the pandemic. The authorities also want to speed up the vaccination campaign and introduce vaccine passports in mid-January.
For several days in the country, masks have to be worn on the street, mass events have been reduced, and it is no longer possible to eat and drink on long-distance trains.
Sweden also has the highest number of people infected since the start of the pandemic: more than 11,000. Among the people with coronavirus are the Swedish royal couple: King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Sylvia. According to the doctors, both are doing well.
An increase in the incidence of COVID-19 was also recorded in Germany. Over the past 24 hours, medical institutions have reported 58,912 new cases of coronavirus infection to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in Berlin.
In a 24-hour period, 346 deaths were recorded across Germany, according to new data. A week ago, 414 people died. Since the start of the pandemic, RKI has counted 7,297,320 confirmed cases of Sars-CoV-2 infection.
The actual total may be much higher as many infections go undetected. German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach wants to impose stricter restrictions on contacts and shorten the quarantine period during planned federal-state consultations on the coronavirus pandemic.
At the moment, 5 million 454 thousand people have died from Covid-19 worldwide, and the total number of infections is 294 million.