The 13 million residents of the Chinese city of Xian began a strict lockdown on Thursday due to an outbreak of COVID-19 at the gates of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, as several parts of the world observe a rapid increase in cases due to the omicron variant, which has caused new restrictions in Europe.
Although it barely registers a few dozen cases a day, far from the 100,000 in the United Kingdom or 60,000 in Spain, China is committed to a virus eradication strategy, especially a month and a half after the Winter Olympics in its capital.
After the appearance of a hundred cases in Xian, known for hosting the famous “Terracotta warriors“Its 13 million inhabitants must stay at home from Thursday at midnight”except imperative reason”.
Only one person per household is authorized to go out to buy every two days and all companies “non-essential”They had to close.
This cautious approach has allowed the Asian giant, where the virus was first detected two years ago, to keep the number of people sick with COVID-19 at just over 100,000.
The Beijing Olympic Games will take place with the most restrictive measures for a sporting event since the beginning of the pandemic, since there will be no international spectators and all participants will have to remain in a “bubble“Health that will include daily anti-COVID-19 tests.
“Effective tool”
In the United Kingdom, they exceeded that number in a single day, with a record 106,000 infections on Wednesday. Spain also beat a maximum number of daily infections, with more than 60,000 cases, almost half due to the omicron variant.
Faced with this situation, the Spanish government, which has one of the most widely vaccinated populations in Europe, announced on Wednesday the reestablishment of the mandatory use of the mask outdoors that had been lifted six months ago.
“The mask has proven in recent months to be an effective tool in prevention“Said the Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, pointing out that it is a measure”temporal” which will be withdrawn “as soon as possible”.
The Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Europe, Dr. Hans Kluge, stated that “omicron is becoming, or has already become, dominant in several countries, including Denmark, Portugal and the United Kingdom, where the numbers are doubling every day and a half to three days, with unprecedented transmission rates ”.
With the multiplication of cases, governments recover restrictions and try to accelerate the inoculation of booster doses and the immunization of children between 5 and 11 years old.
Less serious but more infectious
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned against the illusion that booster doses would suffice to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They could even prolong the pandemic rather than end it, by diverting available doses to countries with high vaccination rates, thus giving the virus a better chance to spread and mutate.”He added.
The highly infectious nature of this new variant may neutralize its apparent lower severity, first observed in South Africa and now reinforced by two British studies conducted in Scotland and England.
These studies indicate that those infected with omicron are notably less likely to end up hospitalized than those infected with delta.
The Scottish study indicates that the risk of hospitalization with omicron is reduced by two thirds. English, meanwhile, points to a 40% -45% reduction in hospitalizations of one night or more.
“While reducing the risk of hospitalization with omicron is reassuring, the risk of infection remains extremely high“Said Azra Ghani of Imperial College London, a co-author of the English study.
And it is that, despite its apparent less seriousness, the rapid spread can increase the base of infected people with what, in absolute numbers, hospitalizations and deaths with omicron can be equal to or worse than with delta.
The pharmaceutical laboratory AstraZeneca said Thursday that a third dose of its vaccine against COVID-19 “significantly” increases the level of antibodies against the omicron variant, citing a clinical study.
100 million cases in America
The new variant has already been detected in 18 countries and American territories, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) indicated on Wednesday when announcing that that continent had exceeded 100 million cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
The latest data from this organization point to a decrease in infections in Central and South America, but instead there was an increase in the Caribbean.
In the United States, where omicron represents 73% of new infections, the honorary Oscar gala scheduled for January was postponed, although the grand awards ceremony for March 27 remains for now.
The country’s drug regulator approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill on Wednesday that, according to this laboratory, reduces the risk of hospitalizations and deaths among at-risk people by 88%.
The world has registered 5’376.527 million deaths and more than 276 million cases of COVID-19 since the end of 2019, according to a balance established by AFP from official sources this Thursday.
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