The highly transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been spreading rapidly in India, where daily infections are setting new records.
Australia’s COVID-19 cases, meanwhile, reached a fresh pandemic high on Tuesday as hospital admissions surged.
Countries including China and the Philippines have tightened restrictions to slow down the spread. Nearly 300 million people have tested positive for COVID-19 worldwide during the past two years, and more than five million deaths have been reported.
Here are Tuesday’s updates:
French TV twins die within a week of each other
Two French TV star twin brothers have died within a week of each other after contracting the coronavirus.
The death of Igor Bogdanoff, 72, was confirmed on Monday evening, just six days after his brother Grichka Bogdanoff passed away in a Parisian hospital.
Instantly recognizable in France and a fixture of glossy celebrity magazines, they made their name on a science program in the 1980s.
Japan daily cases highest in 3 months
The number of new infections in Japan has risen above 1,000 for the first time in three months, the Jiji news agency reported.
Japan had seen fewer cases in recent months, but experts had warned of a potential sixth wave of infections during the winter.
Liner carrying infected passengers docked in Italy
Passengers have begun disembarking from the MCS Grandiosa liner carrying dozens of people who tested positive for the coronavirus.
State TV’s RaiNews24 on Monday reported that passengers testing positive numbered 150 and that most of them were Italian.
The Genoa daily newspaper Il Secolo XIX reported about 40 of those who tested positive got off the cruise ship in Genoa on Monday. Others would be disembarked in Civitavecchia, a port that serves Rome, or in Palermo, Sicily, it added.
Some 4,000 passengers all aboard the ship, which reached Genoa after sailing from Marseille, France.
Beijing seals off its Olympic ‘bubble’
Beijing has sealed up its Winter Olympic “bubble”, preparing the stage for the world’s strictest mass sporting event since the global pandemic.
Thousands of Games-related staff, volunteers, cleaners, cooks and coach drivers entered the so-called “closed-loop” with no direct physical access to the outside world.
That contrasts with the delayed Tokyo Summer Olympics, which allowed some movement in and out for volunteers and other personnel.
Roughly 3,000 athletes are expected to start arriving in the Chinese capital in the weeks ahead and will remain in the bubble from the moment they land until they leave the country.
New Delhi to impose weekend curfew
A weekend curfew to try and curb the spread of the Omicron variant will come into force in India’s capital New Delhi, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia told a news conference.
Sisodia said most offices will be mandated to have half their employees work from home.
Japan promises new measures against Omicron
Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has vowed to speed up coronavirus vaccine booster shots, secure imported supplies of drugs to treat COVID-19 and reorganise medical facilities, in response to the fast-spreading Omicron variant.
Speaking to reporters after praying at the Ise Shrine in Mie Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, Kishida said the response will include making free coronavirus tests more readily available, while border controls will continue, he said.
Japan has shut out incoming travel except for returning residents and Japanese nationals since November.
UK patients showing less severe symptoms
People being hospitalized with COVID-19 in the United Kingdom are broadly showing less severe symptoms than before, Britain’s vaccine minister said on Tuesday.
“At the moment, if you look at the people who have been hospitalized, they are going in with less severe conditions than before,” Minister for Vaccines and Public Health Maggie Throup told Sky News. “The numbers that are in hospital beds is about half what it was a year ago – and that just shows the power of the vaccine.”
Coronavirus cases in the UK were up 50 percent in the week from 28 December and 3 January compared with the week before.
Rory Challands, reporting from a semi-deserted London Bridge station, said contagions and self-quarantine have led to several trains being canceled. “Many people are not able to go back to work,” Challands said, adding that the government was advised to work from home.
France suspends vaccine pass bill review
France’s lower house of parliament has suspended debates over a bill to make it mandatory for people to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to go to a restaurant or cinema or take the train. Tense discussions of the new law, which would remove the option of showing a negative test result instead of having the inoculations, were halted after midnight on Monday after a majority of deputies voted to suspend the session.
The heads of the various parliamentary groups must now set a new date for debates to resume.
The proposed tightening of the rules has angered anti-vaccination activists and some lawmakers say they have been subject to aggression including vandalism and violent threats.
China locks down the city of 1.2 million after 3 cases
More than one million people in a city in central China were being confined to their homes after three asymptomatic coronavirus cases were recorded.
Yuzhou, a city with a population of around 1.17 million people in Henan province, announced that from Monday night all citizens were required to stay home to control the spread of the virus.
Beijing has pursued a “zero COVID” approach with tight border restrictions and targeted lockdowns since the virus first emerged. The strategy has come under pressure with a series of recent local outbreaks and with just a month to go until the Winter Olympics.
In Xi’an, a city of 13 million people that has been under lockdown for nearly two weeks, registered 95 fresh cases on Tuesday.
Philippines widens curbs outside capital
The Philippines will expand coronavirus restrictions in Manila from Wednesday to include more than 11 million people living near the capital, the government said.
The provinces of Bulacan, Cavite and Rizal surrounding Manila have been placed under the third highest alert “due to a sharp increase of COVID-19 cases”, presidential spokesman Karlo Nograles said in a statement Tuesday.
Under the tighter restrictions, which will be in place until mid-January, unvaccinated residents have to stay at home unless buying essentials or exercising. Restaurants, parks, churches and beauty salons will operate at lower capacity while in-person classes and contact sports are suspended.
Daily infections have spiked to a two-month high in January and the health department warned of higher caseloads in the coming days.
India: Highest daily cases since September
India has reported the highest number of COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours since early September, bringing the total number of infections to 34.9 million.
Deaths rose by 124 to reach a total of 482,017, as Omicron overtook Delta in places such as the capital, New Delhi. One of the newly infected people was Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal, who spoke at an election rally on Monday without wearing a mask.
Kejriwal said in a Twitter post he was quarantined at home and urged those who came in touch with him in recent days to be tested for COVID-19.
Australia COVID-19 cases surge, hospitalisations rise
Australian officials reported a record of new daily 47,799 infections, a figure that eclipsed the previous high of 37,212 on Monday.
In New South Wales state, home to Sydney, hospital admissions rose to 1,344, a new pandemic peak, topping the 1,266 reached in September during the Delta wave. Numbers have more than doubled in a week, straining the health system.
New South Wales officials said 74 percent of patients in the state’s intensive care units since December 16 were infected with the Delta variant.
Australia’s antitrust regulator, meanwhile, said it had contacted suppliers of rapid antigen test kits to examine pricing pressures in the market, as calls grow louder for the government to make the tests free amid a severe shortage of kits.
