Despite the strict quarantine countries, Hong Kong is having a hard time controlling the spread of the coronavirus omicron variant, after about 30,000 people were diagnosed with it and 198 people died.
At the same time, in Europe, where most of the attention is being paid to what is happening in the east of the continent following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the number of people infected has also skyrocketed, and Germany is warning of the situation.
Over the past month, Hong Kong has been suffering from a sharp rise in mortality, with its verified numbers unseen since the global epidemic began about two years ago.
This is a particularly unusual case, in light of the work that most of the dead have passed away in the past two weeks, with Hong Kong itself being the place with the highest mortality rates in the world.
"At this moment, we can not comfortably say that we have passed the record," Hong Kong Executive Director Carrie Lam said today (Saturday).
"I can guarantee that we will make every effort to fight this plague."
A woman undergoes a corona test in Hong Kong, Tuesday, Photo: AP
At the same time, the rapid infection trend continues in Germany with close to 200,000 verified daily over the past week.
"We are in a situation I would like to describe as critical," Local Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said yesterday.
"We have again a significant increase in the number of cases, and I keep reading that the omicron is a milder variant, but this is true only to a limited extent," the senior official clarified while not hiding his disappointment given the country's 250 deaths daily from the virus.
To deal with the crisis, Germany is expected to remove most of the country's restrictions from March 20, including the obligation to wear masks, which will be limited to certain places such as flights, long train journeys and places with particularly high morbidity rates.
Young man gets vaccinated against Corona in Berlin, Germany, last month, Photo: Getty Images
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