US record breaking cases and hospitalizations

United States, report record cases and people in hospital, for all of the pandemic so far

Monday, Reuters, 1.35 million new coronavirus infections

(Previous record was 1.03 million cases on Jan. 3.)

Past week, 700,000 per day

Hospitalized

Also hit an all-time high

Doubled in past three weeks

Monday,

136,604 people hospitalized with COVID-19

Previous record, 132,051, January 2021

Ongoing staff out sick

Many elective procedures suspended

Schools

Staff, teachers, bus drivers

Chicago classes cancelled

New York City, three subway lines out

Deaths 1,700 per day

Pfizer, omicron vaccine in March

Zoe study

US cases and deaths data

Colorado

California

Florida

New York

Illinois

UK data

Zoe

SA hospital data

Next 6 to 8 weeks

More than half of people in Europe could be infected

Hans Kluge, director for Europe

a new west-to-east tidal wave sweeping across the region

The region saw over seven million cases of Covid-19 in the first week of 2022,

more than doubling over a two-week period

26 countries, more than 1 % being infected per week

Boosters, play an essential role in protecting the most vulnerable people from severe disease

Also for health workers, teachers

Lower vaccination rates

Balkans and Eastern Europe

For countries not yet hit with the omicron surge, there is a closing window to act now and plan for contingencies

France, Prime Minister Jean Castex

If we were to shut down classes as soon as there is one first case,

bearing in mind the explosion of Omicron,

all French schools would be closed in a matter of days

Catherine Smallwood, W.H.O. senior emergencies officer

Some sense of predictability needed to move from pandemic to endemic

We are still ways off

We still have a huge amount of uncertainty