Global count of Covid-19 cases tops one million per day
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People waiting in line for Covid-19 tests in New York on Dec 28, 2021.
PHOTO: AFP
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NEW YORK (NYTIMES) - As the Omicron variant sweeps across the planet, the global tally of new coronavirus cases has for the first time passed one million per day on average. The previous global case record set last April has already been broken three times this week.
The United States, Canada and much of Western Europe are leading the surge, with both regions seeing record-breaking levels of new Covid-19 cases.
The daily average number of new cases in the US on Tuesday (Dec 28) was more than 267,000, exceeding the previous peak set in January; Wednesday's average was higher still, at more than 300,000.
New cases in at least 11 European countries - Britain, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Spain and Switzerland - also passed their previous peaks on Tuesday or Wednesday. In France, the daily case average passed 100,000.
Cases in Canada have also seen a steep increase in recent days, more than doubling in a week to an average of more than 25,000.
And Australia's cases climbed to an average of more than 12,600 on Wednesday - eight times higher than just three weeks earlier.
As dramatic as these case counts are, they are also likely an undercount because of asymptomatic cases, reporting lags because of the holiday season, lack of test availability in many places and at-home tests whose results may not be reported.
In the US, where Omicron is spreading quickly, 16 states and Puerto Rico are at their case records. These include states with comparatively high vaccination rates: Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island, all of which are at least 70 per cent fully vaccinated.
In addition to being more transmissible generally, Omicron also appears to give rise to more breakthrough infections.
Similarly, some of the European countries facing serious surges have among the world's highest vaccination rates. In Portugal, where 88 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated, cases are up more than 200 per cent in the past two weeks. Spain, where new cases have more than quintupled in the past three weeks, is 80 per cent fully vaccinated.
So far, overall hospitalisation and death rates have not come close to reaching previous peak levels, though some places are struggling.
