Covid cases rise by 948% in Florida Alexandra Villarreal Covid-19 cases in Florida have risen by 948% in just two weeks, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant drives a huge wave of infections and hospitalizations across the US. Even as Dr Anthony Fauci – Joe Biden’s top medical adviser – cautioned the public to look at hospitalizations and not infections in order to gauge Omicron’s severity, the seven-day average for US patients hospitalized with Covid-19 increased by more than 40% during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Cases have risen by more than 100% nationally, despite tests being in short supply in many areas, and infections have doubled in the last seven days to an average of 418,000 a day, according to a Reuters tally. In Florida, local and state officials warned that residents were waiting hours in sometimes miles-long lines just to get a test. Some accused the state health department and the governor, Ron DeSantis, of being missing in action. “It’s every man/woman for themselves, because leadership is MIA,” tweeted state senator Shevrin Jones. Evidence suggests Omicron is a more mild if highly infectious variant. But it “will still do terrible damage among the unvaccinated in both the US and worldwide”, according to the New York Times. Linda Geddes The family gatherings have disbanded, the new year’s hangovers have lifted. Despite record Covid infection figures over the holiday period, evidence that the rate of increase in cases may be slowing has prompted speculation that London, at least, may be close to reaching “peak Omicron”. Boris Johnson is said to be obsessed with this hypothetical time point, seeing it as crucial to how the Covid variant may play out nationwide. If hospitalisations follow the same trajectory and peak without the NHS being overwhelmed, the prime minister’s decision not to impose lockdown-style restrictions before the holiday period may be vindicated. Johnson is correct that peak Omicron, when it comes, will be an important moment. Dr Raghib Ali, a senior clinical research associate at the University of Cambridge’s MRC epidemiology unit said: The reason it matters when it peaks – and particularly when cases peak in the over-50s – is it’s likely that a week later we’ll see the peak in hospitalisations, and roughly two weeks later, we’ll see a peak in the number of deaths. It’s helpful, because it helps us to plan ahead. In London, cases appear to have stabilised, or even fallen during the past two weeks. New hospitalisations also appear to have stabilised in recent days, with 319 people admitted with Covid-19 on 31 December, compared with 450 the day before, and 511 the day before that. Ali said: We would guess, based on what case numbers are doing in London, that the peak in hospital admissions should be this week, and nationally, maybe a week later. This is roughly in line with the scenarios outlined in modelling studies, which suggest Omicron cases will peak in early-mid January. However, the magnitude of the peak appears to be significantly lower than some of the worst case scenarios predicted. For instance, according to modelling data published by the University of Warwick on 30 December, hospital admissions should by now be approaching about 5,000 a day in England. Yet, according to the latest figures, the number of Covid-19 patients admitted on 1 January was 1,819, down from 2,370 three days earlier. Mozambique’s president, Filipe Nyusi, and his wife, Isaura, have tested positive for Covid-19 and are isolating, the president’s office said on Monday. Nyusi and his wife took rapid tests and were asymptomatic but immediately decided to isolate while awaiting their PCR results, the presidency statement said. In total, the country has recorded over 2,000 Covid-19 related deaths and 192,000 infections during the pandemic. Impoverished Mozambique is grappling with a debt crisis and an Islamist insurgency as well as the virus. Turkey recorded 44,869 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the highest daily figure since late April, health ministry data showed on Monday. It also recorded 160 deaths due to Covid-19 in the same period, Reuters reports. Cases in Turkey have more than doubled in just over a week as the Omicron variant became dominant in the country. France reported on Monday 67,641 new confirmed coronavirus cases in a 24-hour period, a figure much lower than a couple of days ago, when daily additional infections were over 200,000. But reported cases always tend to dip on Monday and the 67,641 is a record for that day, and the tally is more than twice as high as one week ago, Reuters reports. The seven-day moving average of new cases in France, which smoothes out daily reporting irregularities, reached a new all-time high of 167,338, jumping almost fivefold in a month. Some 45 cruise ship passengers disembarked in the Italian port of Genoa on Monday after contracting coronavirus, while others who tested positive remained aboard to be let off later, the operator said. Media reports had suggested anywhere between 120 and 150 people were infected onboard MSC Grandiosa, which arrived in Genoa on Monday morning from the French port of Marseille. MSC denied “incorrect” media reports, but would not say how many cases had been picked up during routine testing. “Today we are disembarking 45 positive cases in Genoa,” it said in a statement. A spokesman later told AFP that an unspecified number of other passengers who tested positive were still onboard and would be let off at future stops. The company said most were asymptomatic and they and their close contacts were immediately isolated in cabins with balconies and provided with medical attention. Port authorities in Genoa confirmed to AFP news agency an unspecified number of passengers had been disembarked, with Italians from the north of the country to be taken to their homes and foreigners transferred to care facilities while they isolate. They said the cruise ship would continue its journey to the Italian port of Civitavecchia, where positive patients living in central or southern Italy would be disembarked and taken home to isolate. All transfers and stays in Covid facilities were being paid for by MSC Cruises, the authorities said. The cruise industry worldwide is struggling to get back on its feet after voyages were halted at the start of the pandemic and several vessels were hit by outbreaks. One of the UK’s biggest care home operators is calling on the government to lift visiting restrictions after it recorded one Covid death in the last fortnight. Four Seasons Healthcare, which operates 165 care homes, said close to 4,000 residents were living under strict lockdowns because of outbreaks, but the Omicron variant was proving so mild in a well-vaccinated population that limits on seeing family and friends were in “total imbalance” with the risk. Of 132 deaths among the chain’s residents in the last two weeks, just one was attributed to Covid, but because two or more staff or residents have tested positive in 86 homes, indoor visits are now largely banned. That is in step with government guidelines imposed before Christmas amid uncertainty about the danger of the latest coronavirus variant. Jeremy Richardson, the chief executive of the UK’s third largest care home provider, said: We are depriving people of their right to visitors, which is an absolute outrage. The government restrictions at the moment are making it very difficult to give people a quality of life. He added: We run care homes. We do not run prisons. A total of 51,800,798 first doses of Covid-19 vaccine had been delivered in the UK by 2 January, government figures show. This is a rise of 12,121 on the previous day but does not include data for Wales, PA reports. Some 47,451,922 second doses have been delivered, an increase of 15,893, in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. A combined total of 34,205,472 booster and third doses have also been given, a day-on-day rise of 106,665, also just in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Separate totals for booster and third doses are not available. UK reports 157,758 new Covid cases amid 50% weekly rise The UK reported 157,758 new Covid cases today and 42 additional deaths. Cases rose by 50% between 28 December and 3 January compared with the week before. Deaths rose 17% during the same period compared with the previous seven days. On Wednesday there were 11,918 patients in hospital with Covid - 868 of whom were on beds with a mechanical ventilator. Schools in the Netherlands are set to reopen next week after an extended Christmas holiday due to Covid - despite rising infections. Last month, in response to Omicron, the government brought in some of the toughest restrictions in Europe - including closing schools for three weeks and shutting non-essential shops and cultural and entertainment venues until 14 January. But today the Dutch education ministry said schools would reopen as planned, reports AFP. Primary and high schools will reopen on 10 January, while higher education institutions will be restricted to online learning. From next week, teenagers aged 17 and under will be permitted to play sports outside until 8pm. The Dutch National Institute of Public Health said today that positive coronavirus cases were rising as 14,623 new people tested positive and the average rate of infection rose for a sixth consecutive day. Ontario announces new Covid restrictions as officials warn of "tsunami" of new cases Canada’s most populous province has announced new restrictions - including closing down schools and shops operating at 50% capacity - as officials warned of a “tsunami” of new Covid cases. Pupils in Ontario will move to online learning as all schools were ordered to shut down, while shops and indoor shopping malls were ordered to restrict operations to 50% capacity, reports Reuters, following record infections driven by Omicron. Outdoor services will be limited to a number where people can maintain 2 metres of physical distance. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, warned that Omicron “spreads like wildfire”. The reopening of schools has been delayed until at least 17 January. Hospitals have been instructed to pause all non-urgent surgeries and procedures to preserve critical care. Scottish parliament to again be recalled as Covid hits record levels Nicola Sturgeon is to give a fresh update on her government’s Covid strategy on Wednesday as she faces growing pressure to cut Scotland’s self-isolation rules. With Covid cases now hitting record levels, the Scottish parliament will meet in virtual session on Wednesday afternoon after being recalled for the second time during the Christmas recess. Scotland reported 20,217 new cases and a 35% positive results rate on Monday, fuelled by a surge in Omicron cases. Hospitalisations have nearly doubled in the past week, from 528 cases on Boxing Day to 1,031 on Monday. The numbers of people in intensive care, a marker for potential deaths, has remained broadly level since declining sharply in early December. No new deaths were reported on Monday, potentially due to the holiday weekend. Opposition parties and business leaders have been urging Sturgeon to cut Scotland’s self-isolation rules, which remain the toughest in the UK, to relieve staffing pressures on the NHS, businesses and essential services such as the rail network. Scots are expected to isolate for 10 days after contact with a positive case, even after a negative test. In England and Wales, the limit is now seven days provided people have negative lateral flow tests on days six and seven. Sturgeon told MSPs last week she feared relaxing restrictions too soon could provoke a steeper rise in Covid infections. There is also pressure on Sturgeon and the health secretary, Humza Yousaf, to provide evidence about the proportion of people in hospital with Covid who were admitted because they were ill with the virus, rather than another medical reason. Some English studies suggest around half of those with Covid in hospital did not know they had it, and were admitted for other reasons. Yousaf said that data was being assessed. It also remains unclear whether anyone has yet died from Omicron in Scotland; Yousaf claimed last week that disclosing that data could breach patient confidentiality. The UK’s daily Covid figures have been delayed today and are expected at around 5.30pm. A message on the government’s coronavirus dashboard read: “Because of a delay in receiving deaths data for England, today’s update is delayed. The current estimate for release is 5.30pm.” Italy reports 68,052 new Covid cases Italy reported 68,052 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, up from 61,046 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of coronavirus-related deaths rose to 140, up from 133. Italy has registered 137,786 deaths linked to the virus since the first outbreak emerged in February 2020, and has reported 6.4m cases to date, Reuters reports. The number of patients in hospital with Covid-19 – not including those in intensive care – was 12,333 on Monday, up from 11,756 a day earlier. There were 103 new admissions to intensive care units, one fewer than on Sunday. The total number of intensive care patients increased to 1,351 from a previous 1,319. About 445,321 tests for Covid-19 were carried out in the last day, compared with a previous 278,654, the health ministry said. Covid-related staff shortages across England are causing “terrible” rubbish collection delays, local politicians have warned, with bins in some areas left “overflowing” with waste from the festive period. Councillors in London, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Buckinghamshire have said bin collection services have been scaled back as workers continue to fall sick with the virus, PA Media reports. Chelmsford city council confirmed 23 members of staff were absent and cancelled three days’ worth of food waste collections. North Somerset council said it had been unable to pick up 1,000 recycling bins on New Year’s Eve as crews remain “stretched due to staff sickness”. Andrew Gregory Multiple NHS trusts have declared “critical incidents” amid soaring staff absences caused by Covid, as health leaders warned pressure was increasingly spreading to hospitals outside London. More than half a dozen trusts in England have issued alerts over “internal critical incidents” in the last few days, it is understood, amid mounting concerns some may be unable to deliver vital care to patients. Health leaders said the “rapidly increasing” number of absent NHS staff was piling “very serious” pressure on hospitals already struggling to cope with increasing Covid admissions and wider pressure on urgent and emergency services. Hospitals in the north-east and Yorkshire have reported the most rapid growth in Covid patients in recent days. However, NHS chiefs also expressed cautious optimism that after weeks of rising hospitalisations in London – the centre of the Omicron outbreak – that the increases may have peaked and be starting to plateau. Parts of NHS in England in "crisis" due to Covid and staff shortages, warns UK healthcare leader Parts of the health service are in “crisis”, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation has said. Matthew Taylor said: In many parts of the health service, we are currently in a state of crisis. In the face of high levels of demand and staff absence some hospitals are having to declare a ‘critical incident’. Some hospitals are making urgent calls to exhausted staff to give up rest days and leave to enable them to sustain core services. Many more hospitals are having to ban visitors to try to reduce the spread of infection. NHS England is continuing to plan for surge capacity. Community and social care services, which were already massively overstretched, are at breaking point. In many areas, ambulance services are unable to meet their target response times. Primary care is having to add caring for Covid-19 patients and trying to keep them out of hospitals to driving the booster programme and dealing with unprecedented underlying demand which is driven in part by the millions of unwell people waiting for appointments and operations. On Saturday, the United Lincolnshire hospitals NHS trust declared an internal critical incident “due to extreme and unprecedented workforce shortages”, meaning the trust was “unable to maintain safe staffing levels”, the Sunday Times reported. Kuwait has urged its citizens to leave several European countries including the UK, France and Germany because of rising cases of the Omicron variant in the region. AFP reports: In a series of statements overnight Sunday, the oil-rich Gulf state also warned Kuwaitis, often big spenders abroad, to avoid travelling to the countries. The foreign ministry said they should “delay their trips” generally and, in particular, to France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy. It said its citizens should leave those countries “considering the significant and unprecedented rise in the number of new cases” of Covid-19. Europe has in the past few months again become the centre of the pandemic and is battling an upsurge of cases spurred on by the highly transmissible Omicron strain. The countries with the highest ratio of infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the world were all in Europe, according to an AFP tally on Saturday. The count showed more than 4.9m infections reported in Europe over the seven days to 1 January. France alone recorded more than 1 million new cases during that one-week period. Kuwait’s foreign ministry also said on Monday that the country’s citizens should leave Morocco due to concerns over Covid-19. The number of recorded cases in Kuwait remains relatively low. But it jumped 20-fold in a month to reach around 600 cases on Sunday in the country of more than 4 million people. Elsewhere in the Gulf, cases have also surged. In the United Arab Emirates, infections have risen almost 40-fold since the beginning of December. Saudi Arabia announced 1,746 new cases on Monday, the most in six months and a leap of more than 700 from just a day earlier.