Hundreds of thousands of cases of covid-19 are recorded every day in France, the United Kingdom and the United States. The omicron variant accounts for a large part of these infections.
–
In France
Nearly 300,000 new cases of covid-19 have been recorded in France over the past 24 hours, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran announced on Tuesday, in a context still marked by the outbreak of the omicron variant.
“Today, Public Health France risks announcing close to 300,000 contaminations over 24 hours,” said Véran to the National Assembly.
Even if the minister did not give the precise figure, it will undoubtedly be a record of daily contaminations. The most recent dates back to the end of December, with just over 230,000 new cases in one day.
These figures testify to the magnitude of the current wave of the epidemic. This has been going on since the fall and was relaunched at the end of 2021 with the arrival of the Omicron variant, considerably more contagious than its predecessors even if its severity seems limited.
The effects on the hospital, still very uncertain in the medium term, are already being felt, with more than 2,000 admissions in one day, according to previous figures given on Monday by Public Health France.
In the USA
The United States, facing a worrying fifth wave of covid-19 fueled by the omicron variant, recorded a world record of more than one million cases reported on Monday after the New Years’ long weekend, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The number of cases reported over 24 hours was established Monday evening at 8:30 p.m. at 1,080,211. However, it should be taken with caution because the number of cases recorded on Monday is generally very high, especially after a three-day weekend as was the case for the New Year in the United States.
However, this is more than double the number of cases recorded last Monday, after the three-day Christmas weekend, where more than 489,000 infections had been recorded by the university.
The seven-day average of cases, deemed more significant by experts, stood on Monday evening at nearly 486,000 daily cases.
Dr Anthony Fauci, senior White House adviser on the health crisis, said on Sunday that the rise in the number of covid-19 cases in the United States was following an “almost vertical” curve.
Omicron is now the dominant variant in the United States and accounted for about 59% of new cases in the week ending December 25, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC).
Millions of deaths
The pandemic has killed at least 5,448,314 people worldwide since the end of December 2019, according to an assessment established by AFP from official sources, Tuesday at 11 a.m.
In absolute terms, the United States is the most bereaved country with 827,749 dead, followed by Brazil (619,209), India (482,017) and Russia (312,187).
– .
