Hong Kong closes its doors to eight countries and the world registers an explosion of COVID cases

The Hong Kong government announced on Wednesday that it prohibits the arrival of passengers from flights from eight countries in order to try to stop the spread of the omicron variant that causes an explosion of cases in the world.

The ban affects flights from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, India, Pakistan and the Philippines.

“Passengers from these countries will not be allowed to land in Hong Hong and people who have been to these countries will not be able to take flights to Hong Kong“, Even if it is a stopover in the territory, Chief Executive Carrie Lam told reporters.

Among the measures announced on Wednesday in Hong Kong is also the ban on mass events and the closure of 15 types of shops, including bars, discos, gyms and beauty centers.

Hong Kong, like mainland China, has opted for a “zero COVID” strategy that consists of applying a long quarantine to anyone who enters the territory and severe isolation for the sick and their contacts.

These measures have caused this city of 7.5 million inhabitants to register only about 12,000 cases of COVID and 213 deaths since the start of the pandemic, but for this, it has paid the high price of isolation.

This Wednesday, a cruise ship “to nowhere” that sailed from Hong Kong was forced to return to port to test its 3,700 passengers after nine were declared contacts of a focus of the omicron variant.

In mainland China, the city of Zhengzhou will test its 12 million residents for COVID-19 after detecting 11 cases as the country tries to eradicate the coronavirus ahead of the Beijing Winter Games.

Meanwhile, the outbreak in the historic Chinese city of Xi’an appears to be under control on Wednesday, after two weeks of forced confinement.

-Dazzling-

The contagions in China are negligible compared to other parts of the world, where the figures multiply in a way that is sometimes difficult to believe: about 890,000 cases in 24 hours in the United States, 270,000 in France, more than 200,000 in the United Kingdom …

Israel announced Wednesday that it had registered nearly 12,000 new COVID cases in the past 24 hours, a new high since the start of the pandemic.

In Latin America, omicron is spreading brilliantly. Argentina registered 81,000 new cases on Tuesday, almost double that of the day before. In Brazil – the second country in the world most mourned by the pandemic, in global terms, after the United States – the authorities of Rio de Janeiro (southeast) decided to suspend the massive street carnival at the end of February.

And Mexico surpassed four million infections with more than 15,000 cases on Tuesday, the highest number since September.

Since the coronavirus was detected in December 2019, the pandemic has killed more than 5.4 million people worldwide, according to an AFP tally based on official data.

Many personalities are among the new positive cases, such as the Swedish King Carlos XVI Gustavo and his wife Silvia or the Mauritanian President Mohamed Uld Cheikh El Ghazouani.

-Macron and Djokovic, the target of criticism-

In this context of the worsening of the pandemic, the medical derogation granted to Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic to play the Australian Open has drawn much criticism. The president of the Australian tennis federation asked to explain the reasons that justify this exemption to the athlete, who showed his reluctance to vaccination and it is not known if he finally agreed to inoculate himself.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared that if the reasons for the repeal were “insufficient”, the tennis player will travel “on the next plane back” to his home.

Finally, in France, controversial statements by President Emmanuel Macron gave a lot to talk about this Wednesday.

The president assured that on Tuesday he wanted to “annoy” or “screw” the unvaccinated until the end, using a very colloquial expression, which provoked criticism from all the opposition, from the right and from the left.

His words also contributed to the deputies suspending their debate again to adopt a law that authorizes a vaccination passport to be able to access places of leisure and transport, mainly. Until now, a negative diagnostic test was enough.