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Houston drive-in test queue (December 2021)
Photo: Jon Shapley / AP
Just before Christmas, the USA reported that the new omicron variant of the coronavirus had displaced the previously predominant delta mutant.
The country is now in the middle of another wave of new infections.
According to the University of Johns Hopkins (JHU), the number of infections recorded daily in the
USA
has exceeded the threshold of one million for the first time.
With 1,080,211 million new cases on Monday, the authorities registered almost twice as many as a week earlier (544,329).
This is based on data from the University of Baltimore on Tuesday.
The US health authority CDC reported in the afternoon (local time) that almost 830,000 infections had been reported for Monday - that would also be an absolute high.
It wasn't immediately clear why the JHU and CDC numbers differ so much.
As a result of the holidays, however, there have recently been more distortions in the corona data.
It must be assumed that the enormous increase is partly due to late registrations after Christmas and New Years.
The number of infections averaged over the past seven days rose to almost 500,000 per day, according to the CDC data.
At the end of November this figure was 100,000.
According to the CDC, the Omikron variant of the virus now accounts for an estimated 95 percent of all new infections.
Almost a third is boosted
According to JHU, the previous high was recorded on December 30th at 590,576.
In the country with 330 million inhabitants, almost 56.7 million people have so far been infected with the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen.
More than 829,000 died.
According to the CDC, 62 percent of the population are fully vaccinated, 33.4 percent have received a booster vaccination so far.
The Johns Hopkins website is updated regularly and is more up-to-date than the official figures from the World Health Organization or the CDC.
In some cases, the numbers are corrected afterwards.
In
France
, too, the number of new infections with the coronavirus has reached a peak.
271,686 infections were registered within 24 hours, more than ever before.
The national health authority announced on Tuesday in Paris.
In the meantime, the particularly contagious Omikron variant also dominates in France.
The number of cases has been rising again for weeks.
Macron wants to increase pressure on the unvaccinated
The government of President Emmanuel Macron wants to introduce drastic restrictions on unvaccinated people in the middle of the month in the fight against the virus.
He wanted to "get on their nerves," says Macron.
Unvaccinated people should no longer have access to restaurants, bars and long-distance transport.
The project is currently being discussed in parliament
Finally,
a new daily high was also reported from
Great Britain .
For the first time, more than 200,000 cases were registered within a day, as the government announced.
The national health service NHS warned of the large number of quarantined employees of the hospitals being overloaded.
218,724 new cases were reported in the UK within 24 hours.
In addition, 48 deaths were registered, the government said.
In view of the rapidly increasing numbers and the resulting staff shortages in clinics, the government was called upon to act.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said emergency clinics had been set up and volunteer medical workers had been called in with the support of the Army.
The NHS was back in the "state of war," he said at a press conference.
At least six hospitals had previously reported "critical incidents," which meant the situation could affect priority care.
As the "Sunday Times" reported, around 50,000 NHS employees were absent from work last week because they were sick or had to isolate themselves.
jok / dpa
