The Omicron variant continues Monday to strongly disrupt air transport, with thousands of flights canceled since Christmas weekend, a meteoric epidemic progression which has also forced France to take new measures, including "mandatory teleworking" "three days minimum per week.
But if this very contagious variant identified in South Africa in November constitutes "a source of concern", it "should not be a source of panic", assured for his part the American President Joe Biden.
Air transport, particularly popular during this holiday season, remained disrupted Monday due to this highly contagious variant identified in South Africa in November.
Some 8,300 international or domestic air routes were canceled this weekend, tens of thousands of flights were delayed between Friday and Sunday. During this long weekend, Chinese airlines alone cut more than 2,000 flights, including many to Xi'an, whose 13 million inhabitants are confined.
The disruptions continued Monday (nearly 2,500 canceled flights) and Tuesday (more than 800 at this point), according to the FlightAware website.
- "A film that never ends" -
In Europe, the global epicenter of the epidemic rebound, several countries have decided on new restrictions to prevent hospital congestion. The Europe region is the one that records the most cases in the world, with 2,901,073 in the last seven days (55% of the world total), as well as the most deaths with 24,287 deaths last week (53% of the total), followed by the USA / Canada zone (10.269, 22%).
"It all seems to be a film that never ends," admitted French Prime Minister Jean Castex, presenting the new measures to face an "extremely tense health situation". The threshold of 100,000 new daily cases was crossed on Saturday for the first time.
Thus, "from Monday and for a period of three weeks", "recourse to teleworking will be made compulsory" when possible and "at the rate of 3 days minimum per week and if possible 4 days", has t it detailed.
"Large gatherings will be limited to a gauge of 2,000 people indoors and 5,000 people outdoors," including in sports arenas, he announced. But no postponement of the start of the school year scheduled for January 3. No curfew for the transition to the new year.
Greece will for its part close, from January 3, restaurants and bars at midnight and allow tables of only six people in these establishments. And people in businesses and public administrations must switch to 50% teleworking from January 3 until January 16.
Denmark and Iceland have announced new daily records of Covid-19 cases. And Norway has indicated that the new variant of the coronavirus is now in the majority in the capital, Oslo.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the United States are also approaching their record of contaminations, with nearly 215,000 new cases on Sunday, a jump of 83% in 14 days. New York health authorities have sounded the alarm on "the increase in pediatric hospitalizations associated with Covid-19".
But President Biden refused to panic: Omicron will not have the same impact as the first wave of Covid-19 a year ago or as the Delta variant this year, he estimated, due the massive vaccination campaign and screening. "We are not seeing hospitalizations increase as much" as before, said Joe Biden, when 72% of the population received at least one injection.
However, he admitted that some hospitals in the country were "overwhelmed, in terms of equipment and personnel", by an increase in hospitalizations, mostly unvaccinated people who are still numerous.
In China, which is preparing for the Winter Olympics (February 4 to 20) and has applied a "zero Covid strategy" since last year, the city of Xi'an (north) has promised to impose the measures "the more stringent "after the screening of several hundred cases of Covid.
Residents of the city have been forced to stay at home since Thursday, with the right to go out only once every three days for refueling. And from Monday, only motorists involved in the fight against the epidemic have the right to get behind the wheel.
- Fourth dose of vaccine -
The coronavirus extends as far as the sea. According to the Washington Post daily, several cruise ships have thus been refused a stopover in Caribbean ports.
According to the CDC, the main public health agency in the United States, more than 60 cruise ships are under investigation by US health authorities after the appearance of cases of Covid-19 on board.
In Israel, a hospital on Monday began administering a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine to its caregivers, in a clinical trial expected to precede a nationwide campaign.
The Covid-19 pandemic has killed at least 5,398,049 people worldwide since the WHO office in China reported the onset of the disease at the end of December 2019 in this country, according to a report drawn up on Monday by AFP from official sources.
The World Health Organization estimates that the real toll could be two to three times higher.