China reported 191 confirmed coronavirus cases for Jan 1, down from 231 a day earlier, the country's health authority said on Sunday. Of the new infections, 131 were locally transmitted, according to a statement by the National Health Commission, down from 175 a day earlier.

There were no new fatalities, leaving the death toll unchanged at 4,636. Mainland China had 102,505 confirmed cases as of the end of Jan 1.

France became the sixth country in the world to report more than 10 million COVID-19 infections since the outbreak of the pandemic, according to official data published on Saturday. The country joins United States, India, Brazil, Britain and Russia in having had more than 10 million cases.

Italy reported 141,262 COVID-19 related cases on Saturday, following 144,243 the day before, the health ministry said, while the number of deaths fell to 111 from 155.

In England, Health minister Sajid Javid said that new restrictions in England to slow the spread of COVID-19 will only be introduced as a last resort, stressing that although hospitalisations were rising, the number of patients in intensive care was stable. The rapid spread of the Omicron variant across the United Kingdom has sent infections to record highs, with close to 190,000 new cases reported on Friday.

India on Sunday reported 27,553 fresh Covid-19 cases and 284 deaths. Active caseload stands at 1,22,801 while Omicron tally is at 1,525. Union Health Ministry said in an official statement refuted claims of missing vaccination targets, that appeared in some international news agency. The Ministry assured that India’s national vaccination programme has been one of the most successful and largest vaccination programmes compared with the many developed western nations with significantly low population base to vaccinate.

New Australian COVID-19 cases dipped on Sunday as testing slowed over a holiday weekend but remained well over 30,000 and hospitalisations rose further in New South Wales as concerns grow about potential strains on the national health system.

Newly diagnosed cases in New South Wales, the most populous state, dropped to 18,278 from 22,577 the day before as the number of tests conducted on New Year's Day dropped by a quarter, health department figures showed. With only Western Australia and the Northern Territory still to report figures on Sunday, the national tally of new cases was more than 32,200, below Saturday's record of 35,327.

All Australian states, except for Western Australia, have begun to live with the virus as vaccination levels have risen, and the easing in restrictions has pushed cases higher. There were five deaths reported in New South Wales and Victoria, bringing the national death toll throughout the pandemic to almost 2,260 people.

The United States is averaging more than 300,000 new cases a day for the first time in the pandemic. Hospitalizations are growing at a much slower rate than cases.

Over the past ten days, daily infections have more than quadrupled in Israel. Severe cases have also climbed but at a far lower rate, rising from about 80 to around 100.

Offering hope, Israel’s top health official commented on Sunday, that a surge of Omicron infections could see Israel reaching herd immunity. Herd immunity is the point at which a population is protected from a virus, either through vaccination or by people having developed antibodies by contracting the disease.