Many countries, including France, are facing a fifth wave of the epidemic. Follow all the news related to Covid-19 in France and around the world.
9:00 p.m.
Aston Villa coach Steven Gerrard has tested positive for Covid-19 and will therefore not attend his team’s next two matches, the Birmingham club announced on Twitter on Saturday.
7:31 p.m.
France crossed the threshold of 100,000 new cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours on Saturday, Christmas Day, unprecedented, while the government must reassess the situation on Monday.
With 104,611 new cases in 24 hours, the country has reached an unprecedented threshold since the start of the epidemic in March 2020, according to figures published Saturday evening by Public Health France. The 50,000 mark was passed on December 4 and this figure has therefore doubled in three weeks, according to data from the health agency.
6.30 p.m.
In the face of the meteoric spread of the Omicron variant in the UK, the government recall campaign, carried out at unprecedented rates, is not taking a break for Christmas.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called the general mobilization to offer a booster dose to all adults in the UK by the end of the year.
5:00 p.m.
Faced with rampant contaminations with the highly contagious Omicron variant which he described as a “tidal wave”, Prime Minister Boris Johnson decreed the general mobilization to offer a booster dose to all adults in the United Kingdom by the end of the year.
More than 32 million people have already benefited from this third dose, or 56% of those aged 12 and over, with a rate approaching one million injections per day. Such a pace had never been reached even in the spring, when the anti-Covid campaign was being waged briskly.
3:00 p.m.
More than 5,600 flights were canceled by airlines as thousands more were delayed around the world over Christmas weekend, with the Omicron variant of Covid-19 disrupting travel during the holidays.
According to the Flightaware website, on Saturday at 13:40 GMT there were nearly 2,500 flight cancellations, of which just over 850 were trips linked to the United States, whether international or internal.
11:50 a.m.
The Omicron variant has become dominant in Portugal, while the country on Friday recorded a record of new cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours since the end of January, announced the General Directorate of Health (DGS).
“The Omicron variant is already dominant in Portugal”, with a number of cases “estimated at 61.5% on December 22,” according to a press release from the DGS specifying, however, that mortality and hospitalizations in intensive care remain “stable” .
Portugal recorded 11 deaths and 12,943 new cases in 24 hours on Friday, a record since January 29. The country was struck at the beginning of the year by a violent wave of contagions which had overwhelmed hospital services.
9:40 a.m.
China reported 140 new cases of the coronavirus on Saturday, the highest figure in four months, as authorities rush to contain the outbreak in several regions, including the city of Xi’an, where millions of people are confined.
Of the 140 new infections, 87 were transmitted locally, according to a statement from the National Health Commission, up from 55 a day earlier. Most of the contaminations occurred in Xi’an, in the province of Shaanxi (northwest), where 13 million inhabitants have been confined since Thursday.