Covid-19 new Omicron variant is recording daily cases from the United States to Australia, adding pressure on health services.
Australia which once feted for its success in controlling the virus, reported 64,758 new cases on Wednesday and most of them were in New South Wales and Victoria states.
The United States reported nearly 1 million new coronavirus infections, the highest daily tally of any country in the world and nearly double the previous US peak set a week ago.
According to data collected by Reuters news agency, marking the first time that threshold has been reached in a year, the number of hospitalised COVID-19 patients has risen nearly 50 percent in the past week and now exceeds 100,000.
The latest surge, which forced waves of cancellations from commercial airlines flights to Broadway shows in recent weeks, was disrupting plans for public schools to welcome students back from winter vacation.
Meanwhile, China is doubling down on its COVID-zero strategy, by announcing new city lockdowns.
This has resulted in Hong Kong announcing a two-week ban on incoming flights from eight countries and tightened coronavirus restrictions after detecting cases of the Omicron variant.
Carrie Lam, the chief executive of Hong Kong, told reporters on Wednesday that incoming flights from Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States, including interchanges, would be banned from January 8 to January 21.
He added that government will also ban indoor dining after 6pm from Friday.
In Xian, which is two weeks into a lockdown, authorities reported 35 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms on Tuesday, compared to 95 the previous day and 150 or more per day during the December 25-31 period, official data showed.
Israel’s health ministry also announced nearly 12,000 new coronavirus cases, which now constitute the largest daily rise in infections since the beginning of the pandemic nearly two years ago.
According to the figures, 11,978 new COVID cases were detected over the course of Tuesday, surpassing the country’s previous record high of 11,344 cases recorded on September 2 last year.
While there were currently nearly 60,000 people with COVID in Israel, the number of serious cases on Wednesday was only 125, according to the health ministry.
Nearly 4.3 million of Israel’s 9.4 million inhabitants have received three shots of coronavirus vaccine. In recent days, authorities began administering fourth shots to at-risk groups.
