Filenews 1 January 2022
The strong wave created by the Omicron mutation is not about to abate. Britain, France, Italy are in the throes of the pandemic with the highest records of daily infections in the Old Continent.
Starting in France, for the third consecutive day infections exceeded 200,000. In particular, the absolute record of cases with 232,200 new infections was announced, at a time when the country prepares to celebrate at a more "quiet pace" the advent of the new year, as many events with fireworks demonstrations were cancelled and the authorities asked citizens to wear masks.
New infections in the last 24 hours have surpassed 200,000 for the third day in a row, with France being one of the epicentres of the pandemic, as the wave of cases linked to the Omicron variant sweeps across Europe.
On Thursday there were 189,213 infections and 332 deaths in Britain.
The exponential increase in coronavirus cases is confirmed by the fact that last week the number of infections was 122,186 and deaths 137.
It is estimated that 2.3 million people in Britain have been infected with coronavirus in the last week, an increase of 1.4 million people compared to the previous week.
In the last twenty-four hours, 144,243 coronavirus cases were recorded and 155 people died in Italy. In total, 1,224,025 diagnostic tests were performed, 11.8% of which came out positive.
According to data, however, of the Italian Higher Institute of Health, the variant "Delta", on December 20 was detected in 79% of all coronavirus cases.
The variant "Omikron", on the same day did not exceed 21%, but continued to spread at a particularly fast pace.
At this stage, the four Italian regions with the most cases are those with Perugia, Milan, Florence and Turin as capitals.
However, Portugal also recorded a new daily record of 30,829 coronavirus infections from 28,659 yesterday, with the rapidly spreading Omikron variant making up 83% of all new infections, according to official data.
Health authority DGS recorded 18 deaths from COVID-19, up from 16 yesterday, Thursday, compared to more than 300 deaths a day at the end of January, when Portugal had just begun its vaccination campaign.
The number of patients in intensive care units remained stable at 145, also well below 900 at the beginning of 2021. Portugal has one of the highest rates of vaccination against COVID-19 in the world, with around 87% of its 10 million inhabitants fully vaccinated.
