Add 5,600 canceled flights, vaccine marathon in the United Kingdom, message from Elizabeth II and the American president, cap of 100,000 daily cases in France
VATICAN CITY (awp / dpa) – Several billion people are celebrating on Saturday, for the second year in a row, a Christmas “not as desired” due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its highly contagious Omicron variant, which has resulted in the cancellation and delay of thousands of flights during the weekend.
Pope Francis’ urbi et orbi blessing began around noon in front of the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome.
Francis called for “dialogue” in the face of the temptation to “withdraw into oneself”, the day after a mass in the basilica in front of only 2,000 masked faithful.
“In these times of pandemic, our ability to maintain social relations is strained, the tendency is reinforced to withdraw into oneself, to go it alone”, including “at the international level”, declared the sovereign pontiff of 85 years old, inviting them to stay on “the paths of dialogue”.
He spoke for Ukraine, where tensions with pro-Russian separatists raise fears of military escalation, and for the “immense” and “forgotten” tragedies in Syria and Yemen, with “many casualties and many. countless refugees “.
At the same time in London, while some were still unwrapping their gifts, others were already lining up to be vaccinated.
Faced with the “tidal wave” of contamination with the Omicron variant, the British government has sounded the general mobilization to inject a booster dose to all adults in the United Kingdom by the end of the year. With a million injections per day, the pace has never been so strong.
“Even though, due to the Covid, we cannot celebrate (Christmas) quite the way we would have liked, we can still enjoy many happy traditions”, such as Christmas carols and tree decoration, said suggested in her speech the British Queen Elizabeth II, obliged for her part to stay at Windsor Castle.
In France, Christmas Day was synonymous in the health plan with a new record, more than 100,000 new cases daily, according to the authorities. The government is due to adopt a bill on Monday making the vaccination pass compulsory.
The Omicron variant has also become dominant in Portugal, with more than 61% of cases and a record of infections since January in 24 hours, despite a vaccination coverage rate among the highest in the world.
In the Philippines, it is with its feet in the water that Father Ricardo Virtudazo celebrated Christmas mass in his church, in an area of the country devastated by Typhoon Rai which recently killed nearly 400 people and tens of thousands. homeless.
Dozens of worshipers prayed for shelter and food and for good weather.
Disrupted trips
With pilots and hostesses in quarantine, airlines had to cancel more than 5,600 flights around the world this weekend, many on linked routes to the United States, and thousands of flights were delayed.
Millions of Americans have nevertheless crisscrossed their country, although the Omicron wave already exceeds the peak of the Delta variant, with 171,000 daily cases on average over seven days. Hospitals are saturated.
On his first Christmas in the White House, Joe Biden praised the “immense courage” of Americans in the face of the pandemic, and called on them to seek “light” and unity in hardship.
If the gatherings were generally easier than in 2020, with exceptions such as in the Netherlands, the pandemic once again weighed on the festivities. Broadway had to cancel Christmas shows in New York City, and Spain and Greece reintroduced the mandatory outdoor mask.
China reported 140 new cases of the coronavirus on Saturday, the highest figure in four months. The country is rushing to contain the epidemic shortly before the Winter Olympics, scheduled for February.
“Fragment of Hope”
Most Australians can travel to their country again, for the first time since the start of the pandemic, reinforcing the Christmas spirit in a country which is yet experiencing a record number of contaminations.
The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney (South East) Anthony Fisher praised in his Christmas message the “moving scenes of people meeting at airports after months of separation”.
In Latin America, outgoing Chilean President Sebastian Piñera has announced that his country will administer a fourth dose of vaccine against the coronavirus from February.
And in Ecuador, anti-Covid vaccination is now compulsory from the age of five, a world first for this age group. So far, only a handful of countries have made vaccination compulsory.
The pandemic has killed at least 5,391,404 people around the world since the end of 2019, according to a report established by AFP from official sources on Saturday. The World Health Organization estimates that the real toll could be two to three times higher.
The epidemic has further accelerated in almost all regions of the world over the past week, except the Middle East and Asia, according to AFP databases.
The pandemic has not completely eroded the magic of Christmas and its spirit of beneficence. In Brazil, a black Santa Claus arrived by helicopter distributed food packages to the inhabitants of the favela of Penha, in Rio de Janeiro (south-east).
bur-clr / mba