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News > South Africa

World Welcomes New Year with Omicron Restrictions

  • WRAPUP 8-Omicron dampens worldwide New Year celebrations, but South Africa offers hope.

    WRAPUP 8-Omicron dampens worldwide New Year celebrations, but South Africa offers hope. | Photo: Twitter @dev_discourse

Published 31 December 2021
Opinion

The world welcomes the New Year with more than one million cases of COVID-19 per day and severe limitations due to the Omicron variant.

The world bids farewell to another year marked by the pandemic. Amid canceled holidays, curfews and other restrictions, the world prepared to enter 2022 after a 2021 pandemic in which, despite vaccines, the Omicron variant caused an unprecedented surge in infections.

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WHO Warns About the Fast Spreading of Omicron Strain

In the last seven days alone, an average of 1,045,000 infections were detected daily, 46% more than the previous week.

In the United States, which has recorded its highest daily infection rate since the beginning of the pandemic, experts say the sharp increase in cases of the Omicron variant of the virus is unprecedented and unlike anything seen before.

On the other hand, Australia recorded another record number of infections, with cases rising on Friday to more than 32 000 people.

Meanwhile, South Africa, where the Omicron variant was first detected, announced that it may have passed the peak of the fourth wave, thus eliminating the curfew. 

An impact like that of the coronavirus had not been seen in almost a century, and with death tolls higher than those of the First World War.

 Vaccines gave hope, with more than 48% of the world population immunized; however, the Omicron variant, although causing milder symptoms than the previous ones, has raised the infection to record levels, something that could cause the collapse of the health system in the most affected countries.

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