WHO Director reported during a news briefing on Tuesday that, more than 15 million new cases of COVID-19 were reported to WHO from around the world during the last week, which were by far the most cases reported in a single week.

This huge spike in infections is being driven by the Omicron variant, which is rapidly replacing Delta in almost all countries. However, the number of weekly reported deaths has remained stable since October last year, at an average of 48 thousand deaths a week.

Learning to live with this virus does not mean we can, or should, accept this number of deaths, he said.

Stressing on the need to vaccinate against the virus he said that the overwhelming majority of people admitted to hospitals around the world are unvaccinated.

Africa
Covid-19 cases in Africa have begun to plateau in the last two weeks, Dr. Abdou Salam Gueye, director of regional emergencies for WHO Africa, said in a virtual briefing on Thursday.

East, central and southern Africa have reported a decrease in cases in the week ending on January 9th, while cases in west and northern Africa have risen.

Deaths across the continent have risen 64% in the same week compared to the previous week, mainly in infected high-risk people, although deaths in the fourth wave remain lower than previous waves.

Around 10% of Africa's population has been vaccinated, according to Dr. Gueye.

Asia
China's northern port city of Tianjin reported an increase in COVID-19 infections on Thursday as it stepped up efforts to rein in an outbreak that has spread the Omicron variant to another city.

Omicron has brought new challenges for China's strategy to quickly stamp out outbreaks, which has taken on urgency ahead of the Winter Olympics from Feb. 4, while the busy Lunar New Year travel season begins this month.

Hong Kong will ban transit passengers from most countries for a month starting on Sunday, the Hong Kong Airport Authority announced on Thursday.

Anyone staying in a "high-risk country" in the last 21 days will not be allowed to use the Hong Kong International Airport as a transit point, the airport authority announced.

Hong Kong has classified any country outside mainland China or Taiwan with the Omicron coronavirus variant as a "high-risk country" — meaning that most passengers will be affected by the new measures.

On Thursday, South Korea reported 391 imported Covid-19 cases, a daily record, according to KDCA. The country will mandate that international arrivals take a PCR test within 48 hours of departure, shortened from 72 hours, starting from January 20, Ko Jae-young, spokesman for the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said.

Health authorities estimate that the Omicron variant may become the dominant variant in the country by late January, Ko said.

Starting from Friday, South Korea will also begin administering Pfizer’s oral treatment pill Paxlovid to patients (the first Asian country to do so) with a high chance of getting critically ill, those aged 65 or above, and those with reduced immunity.

The country reported 4,167 new cases from Wednesday, bringing the total confirmed cases to 679,030, KDCA said. The death toll rose by 44 to 6,210.

Singapore's health minister Ong Ye Kung on Monday gave the country's Parliament a breakdown of Covid-19 deaths among vaccinated patients last year.

In 2021, Singapore recorded 802 Covid-19 deaths; some 247 of those who died were fully vaccinated, while 555 were not fully vaccinated, Ong said.

Japan must coexist with Covid-19 while achieving economic growth, a government official said Wednesday, as infections surge in the country.

"We know infectious diseases aren't going away ever. Our job is to revitalize the economy and move toward growth while coexisting with them," Japan's minister for economic revitalization, Daishiro Yamagiwa, said at a news conference in Tokyo.

Yamagiwa’s comments came as the world's third-largest economy reported more than 13,000 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, surpassing 10,000 daily infections for the first time since September 9 last year, according to a tally by public broadcaster NHK.

Tokyo recorded a new four-month high in COVID-19 infections on Thursday, and experts forecast the spread of the Omicron variant will cause the daily count to triple by month's end.

Australia
Wednesday was the second deadliest day of the pandemic with 21 deaths recorded in both NSW and Victoria and seven in SA.

NSW reports 34,759 Covid cases and 2,242 hospitalisations, Victoria 40,127 cases with 946 in hospital, Queensland 22,069 and 525, SA 3,715 and 190, Tasmania 1,583 and 22, ACT 1,078 and 23, NT 352 and 28, and four new cases in Western Australia.

There were $1,000 fines announced for not reporting positive rapid antigen tests in NSW and in South Australia

India
India reported more than 247,000 Covid-19 cases on Thursday, a sharp increase from the day before, as cases in the country surge.

Thursday's 247,417 cases is 27% higher than the 194,720 cases registered on Wednesday, the country's Health Ministry reported.

The last time the country recorded similar numbers was on May 22, 2021 — during the throes of India's crippling second wave that saw millions infected and hospitals pushed to the brink of collapse.

As India braces for a third wave, major cities including the capital, Delhi, and financial center Mumbai continue to report high daily cases.

UK
England cuts minimum Covid-19 isolation for people who test positive for Covid-19 in England will be reduced from seven to five days on Monday, UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced Thursday.

“Around two thirds of positive cases are no longer infectious by the end of day five,” Javid told the House of Commons, citing data from the UK Health Security Agency.

Rest of Europe

In France, at least three-quarters of elementary school teachers were reported to be on strike and half of elementary schools were closed Thursday in protest at the government's Covid-19 protocols, according to a French teachers' union.

The country had announced Vaccinated travellers from UK will no longer be required to isolate upon arrival in France, nor will they have to provide a compelling reason for travel, minister of tourism Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne announced on Twitter on Thursday.

But they will still need to present a negative PCR test taken within 24 hours before departure.

Unvaccinated travellers from the UK must continue to register before departure on France’s digital platform and must observe a strict quarantine period of 10 days, according to a press release from the prime minister’s office.

Germany's vaccine advisory committee — known as STIKO — has recommended Covid-19 booster shoots from Pfizer/BioNTech for all children and teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17, as the country recorded its highest single daily surge in infections on Thursday. Booster shots should be administered three months after the last vaccine dose at the earliest, STIKO added.

Germany on Thursday reported a record of more than 81,000 COVID-19 infections in a day as the government's coronavirus crisis manager warned of possible bottlenecks in testing.

On Thursday, German health minister and epidemiologist Karl Lauterbach urged German lawmakers in parliament to support a key vote on whether to introduce a general vaccine mandate by the end of March or else the country ''would never be able to end the pandemic.''

US

Another 1,000 military health workers are deploying to six U.S. states beginning next week to help hospitals overwhelmed by a surge in Omicron-related COVID-19 cases, the White House said on Thursday.

To date, 847,664 people have died from COVID in the United States amid 63,268,225 reported total cases as the outbreak enters its third year.