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Officials probe cause of massive Colorado fire; 3 missing
Investigators are still trying to determine what sparked a massive fire in a suburban area near Denver that burned neighborhoods to the ground and destroyed nearly 1,000 homes and other buildings.
Three people are missing following the inferno that broke out Thursday.
Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said Saturday authorities were pursuing a number of tips and had executed a search warrant at “one particular location.” He declined to give details.
A sheriff’s official who declined to provide his name confirmed one property was under investigation in Boulder County’s Marshall Mesa area, a region of open grassland about 2 miles ( 3.2 kilometers) west of Superior. A National Guard Humvee blocked access to the property, which was only one of several under investigation, the official said.
Utility officials found no downed power lines around where the fire broke out in the area located between Denver and Boulder. The wildfire came unusually late in the year, following an extremely dry fall and amid a winter nearly devoid of snow, conditions experts say certainly helped the fire spread.
READ: Colorado wildfires burn hundreds of homes, force evacuations
At least 991 homes and other buildings were destroyed, Pelle said: 553 in Louisville, 332 in Superior and 106 in unincorporated parts of the county. Hundreds more were damaged. Pelle cautioned that the tally from the wind-whipped wildfire is not final.
The totals include destroyed barns, outbuildings and other structures, but the vast majority were homes, Boulder County spokesperson Jennifer Churchill said late Saturday.
Authorities had said earlier no one was missing. But Churchill said that was due to confusion inherent when agencies are scrambling to manage an emergency.
Pelle said officials were organizing cadaver teams to search for the missing in the Superior area and in unincorporated Boulder County. The task is complicated by debris from destroyed structures, covered by 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow dumped by a storm overnight, he said.
At least seven people were injured in the wildfire that erupted in and around Louisville and Superior, the neighboring towns about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of Denver with a combined population of 34,000.
The blaze, which burned at least 9.4 square miles (24 square kilometers), was no longer considered an immediate threat — especially with the overnight dumping of snow and frigid temperatures Saturday.
READ: Father, son arrested in wildfire that threatened Lake Tahoe
The snow and temperatures in the single digits cast an eerie scene amid still-smoldering remains of homes. Despite the shocking change in weather, the smell of smoke still permeated empty streets blocked off by National Guard troops in Humvees.
The conditions compounded the misery of residents who started off the new year trying to salvage what remained of their homes.
Utility crews struggled to restore electricity and gas service to homes that survived, and dozens of people lined up to get donated space heaters, bottled water and blankets at Red Cross shelters. Xcel Energy urged other residents to use fireplaces and wood stoves to stay warm and keep their pipes at home from freezing.
Families filled a long line of cars waiting to pick up space heaters and bottled water at a Salvation Army distribution center at the YMCA in Lafayette, just north of Superior.
Monarch High School seniors Noah Sarasin and his twin brother Gavin had been volunteering at that location for two days, directing traffic and distributing donations.
“We have a house, no heat but we still have a house,” Noah Sarasin said. “I just want to make sure that everyone else has heat on this very cold day.”
Hilary and Patrick Wallace picked up two heaters, then ordered two hot chocolate mochas at a nearby cafe. The Superior couple couldn’t find a hotel and were contemplating hiking 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) back to their home; their neighborhood was still blocked off to traffic. The family slept in one room on New Year’s Eve.
Both teared up when a man entered the shop and joked aloud that he’d lost his coffee mugs — and everything else — in the fire. The man was in good spirits, laughing at the irony of the situation.
“I have a space heater and a house to put it in. I don’t even know what to say to them,” Hilary said, wiping away a tear.
Superior resident Jeff Markley arrived in his truck to pick up a heater. He said he felt lucky to be “just displaced” since his home is intact.
“We’re making do, staying with friends, and upbeat for the new year. Gotta be better than this last one,” Markley said.
Not everyone felt as positive.
“It’s bittersweet because we have our house, but our friends don’t. And our neighbors don’t,” said Louisville resident Judy Givens as she picked up a heater with her husband. “We thought 2022 might be better. And then we had omicron. And now we have this, and it’s not starting out very well.”
New York state COVID rate hits new high at New Year’s start
Over 85,000 people tested positive for the coronavirus statewide on the last day of 2021, a more than 10 percent rise from the day before, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Saturday.
Hochul reported in a release that the positive COVID-19 test results reached 85,476 on Friday, along with 88 more deaths.
The continued escalation in positive test results raised the rate of positive tests to 22.2 percent and the seven-day average to nearly 20 percent, the state said.
The state reports that the total number of deaths in the state since the pandemic began has risen to 61,242. The number of patients hospitalized rose to 8,451 on Friday, an increase of 532 from the day before.
READ: Global covid cases hit new high amid Omicron surge
The deaths continue to occur even though the state reports that 89.2 percent of New Yorkers who are 18 and over have received at least one vaccine shot.
READ: Global Covid: Cases top 286 million with Omicron surge
Hochul urged anyone who has not gotten a second or third vaccine shot to do so as soon as possible.
Crews rescue 21 people on stuck tram cars in New Mexico
New Mexico search and rescue crews used ropes and helicopters Saturday to rescue 21 people who were stranded overnight in two tram cars after an iced-over cable caused the cars to get stuck high up in the Sandia Mountains overlooking Albuquerque.
Lt. Robert Arguellas a Bernalillo County Fire Department spokesperson, said early Saturday afternoon that crews first rescued 20 people stranded in one car and several hours later rescued a 21st person stranded by themselves in a second car.
All the people on the two cars were employees of the Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway or a mountaintop restaurant, and the 20 in one car were being ferried down to the base of the mountains at the end of their workdays, Arguellas said.
Read: UN leader urges 'concrete' moves on year-end vaccine goal
The other employee had been heading up the mountain to provide overnight security when the tram system shut down Friday night due to icing, Arguellas said.
There were no reported injuries among those stranded, Arguellas said. “More just pretty frustrated.”
To rescue the 20 people in the one car, operators were able to move it to a nearby support tower more than halfway up the mountain, and search and rescue personnel early Saturday morning hiked to the area and climbed the tower to deliver blankets and other supplies to those inside the heated car, Arguellas said.
Search and rescue personnel over several hours used ropes and other equipment to lower the stranded employees about 85 feet (26 meters) to the ground before escorting them to a nearby landing zone in the steep and rocky terrain where the tower was located, Arguellas said.
The 20 people were then ferried by helicopter several at a time to the base of the mountains, he said.
Also read; 20 trapped miners rescued from flooded coal mine in north China
Arguellas said the second car with the one employee aboard was higher up the mountain and at location where the car was too high above the ground to lower people by ropes.
But the tram system was able to inch the second car down the cable to the rescue site at the support tower, and rescuers then used ropes to lower the 21st person as was done with the others, Arguellas said.
Brian Coon, a tramway system manager, said there was an unusually fast accumulation of ice on one of the cables that made it droop below the tram, making it dangerous to keep going, KOB-TV reported.
Israeli jets hit militant targets in Gaza after rocket fire
Israel’s military said early Sunday it launched strikes against militant targets in the Gaza Strip, a day after rockets were fired from the Hamas-ruled territory.
Video filmed in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, showed three huge explosions and fighter jets could be heard flying overhead. There was no immediate confirmation on possible casualties.
The Israeli military said the attacks targeted a rocket manufacturing facility and a military post for Hamas. It also blamed the militant Islamic group for any violence emanating from the territory it controls.
The airstrikes come as retaliation for two rockets fired from Gaza on Saturday which landed in the Mediterranean Sea off central Israel.
Read: Israel set to OK 3,000 West Bank settler homes this week
It was not clear whether the rockets were meant to hit Israel, but Gaza-based militant groups often test-fire missiles toward the sea. There were no reports of casualties from Saturday’s rocket launches.
Apart from a single incident in September, there has been no cross-border rocket fire since a cease-fire ended an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in May.
The cease-fire, brokered by Egypt and other mediators, has been fragile. The militant Hamas group says Israel did not take serious steps to ease the blockade it imposed on Gaza with Egypt’s help when the Islamic movement seized control of the coastal enclave in 2007.
Tension are also high as other groups like the smaller but more hardline Islamic Jihad threaten military escalation if Israel doesn’t end the administrative detention of a Palestinian prisoner who has been on a hunger strike for over 130 days.
Read: Israel, Palestinian militants use bodies as bargaining chips
On Wednesday, Palestinian militants in Gaza shot and lightly wounded an Israeli civilian near the security fence and Israel responded with tank fire targeting multiple Hamas sites in the first exchange of fire in months.
New Year’s Eve muted by omicron; many hoping for better 2022
Good riddance to 2021. Let 2022 bring fresh hope.
That was a common sentiment as people around the world began welcoming in the new year.
In many places, New Year’s Eve celebrations were muted or canceled for the second straight year due to a surge of coronavirus infections, this time driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.
Even before omicron hit, many people were happy to say goodbye to a second grinding year of the pandemic.
But so far, at least, the omicron surge hasn’t resulted in the same levels of hospitalizations and deaths as previous outbreaks — especially among vaccinated people — offering a glimmer of hope for 2022.
Read:US children hospitalized with COVID in record numbers
Australia went ahead with its celebrations despite an explosion in virus cases. Thousands of fireworks lit up the sky over Sydney’s Harbor Bridge and Opera House at midnight in a spectacular display.
Hours before the celebrations began, Australian health authorities reported a record 32,000 new virus cases, many of them in Sydney. Because of the surge, crowds were far smaller than in pre-pandemic years, when as many as 1 million revelers would crowd inner Sydney.
Neighboring New Zealand had earlier opted for a more low-key approach, replacing its fireworks show in Auckland with a lights display projected onto landmarks including the Sky Tower and Harbor Bridge.
While there hasn’t yet been any community spread of omicron in New Zealand, authorities still wanted to discourage crowds gathering.
Because of where the international date line sits, countries in Asia and the Pacific region are among the first to usher in each new year.
In Japan, writer Naoki Matsuzawa said he would spend the next few days cooking and delivering food to the elderly because some stores would be closed. He said vaccinations had made people less anxious about the pandemic, despite the new variant.
“A numbness has set in, and we are no longer overly afraid,” said Matsuzawa, who lives in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo. “Some of us are starting to take for granted that it won’t happen to me.”
Like many other people, Matsuzawa hopes that life will improve in 2022.
“I hope the restrictions can disappear,” he said.
Across Japan, many people planned to take new year trips to spend time with their families. On New Year’s Eve, people thronged temples and shrines, most of them wearing masks.
Some appeared to be shrugging off virus fears, however, by dining and drinking raucously in downtown Tokyo and flocking to shops, celebrating not only the holidays but a sense of exhilaration over being freed from recent virus restrictions.
In South Korea’s capital, Seoul, the annual New Year’s Eve bell-ringing ceremony was canceled for the second straight year due to a surge in cases.
Officials said a pre-recorded video of this year’s bell-ringing ceremony would instead be broadcast online and on television. The ceremony had previously drawn tens of thousands of people. Last year’s cancellation was the first since the ceremony began in 1953.
South Korean authorities also planned to close many beaches and other tourist attractions along the east coast, which usually swarm with people hoping to catch the year’s first sunrise. On Friday, South Korea said it will extend tough distancing rules for another two weeks.
In India, millions of people were planning to ring in the new year from their homes, with nighttime curfews and other restrictions taking the fizz out of celebrations in large cities including New Delhi and Mumbai.
Authorities have imposed restrictions to keep revelers away from restaurants, hotels, beaches and bars amid a surge in cases fueled by omicron.
But some places, including Goa, a tourist paradise, and Hyderabad, an information technology hub, have been spared from night curfews thanks to smaller numbers of infections, although other restrictions still apply.
Many Indonesians were also forgoing their usual festivities for a quieter evening at home, after the government banned many New Year’s Eve celebrations. In Jakarta, fireworks displays, parades and other large gatherings were prohibited, while restaurants and malls were allowed to remain open but with curfews imposed.
Vietnam also canceled fireworks shows and celebrations. In Hanoi, authorities closed off central streets, while in Ho Chi Minh City, audiences were banned from watching live countdown performances, which instead were to be shown on social media.
In Hong Kong, about 3,000 people planned to attend a New Year’s Eve concert featuring local celebrities including boy band Mirror. The concert will be the first big New Year’s Eve event held since 2018, after events were canceled in 2019 due to political strife and last year because of the pandemic.
Read:6 provinces in Canada report new daily highs for coronavirus
In mainland China, the Shanghai government canceled events including an annual light show along the Huangpu River in the city center that usually draws hundreds of thousands of spectators.
There were no plans for public festivities in Beijing, where popular temples have been closed or had limited access since mid-December. The government has called on people to avoid leaving the Chinese capital if possible and requires tests for travelers arriving from areas where there are infections.
Popular temples in the eastern Chinese cities of Nanjing, Hangzhou and other major cities canceled traditional New Year’s Eve “lucky bell-ringing” ceremonies and asked the public to stay away.
But in Thailand, authorities were allowing New Year’s Eve parties and fireworks displays to continue, albeit with strict safety measures. They were hoping to slow the spread of the omicron variant while also softening the blow to the country’s battered tourism sector. New Year’s Eve prayers, which are usually held in Buddhist temples around Thailand, will be held online instead.
In the Philippines, a powerful typhoon two weeks ago wiped out basic necessities for tens of thousands of people ahead of New Year’s Eve. More than 400 were killed by Typhoon Rai and at least 82 remain missing. Half a million homes were damaged or destroyed.
Leahmer Singson, a 17-year-old mother, lost her home to a fire last month, and then the typhoon blew away her temporary wooden shack in Cebu city. She will welcome the new year with her husband, who works in a glass and aluminum factory, and her 1-year-old baby in a ramshackle tent in a coastal clearing where hundreds of other families erected small tents from debris, rice sacks and tarpaulins to shield themselves from the rain and sun.
Asked what she wants for the new year, Singson had a simple wish: “I hope we won’t get sick.”
Global Covid: Cases top 286 million with Omicron surge
The overall number of global coronavirus cases has surged past 286 million fueled by the spread of the Omicron variant.
According to Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the total case count mounted to 286,433,032 while the death toll from the virus reached 5,428,687 Friday morning.
The US has recorded 54,286,545 cases so far and more than 824,277 people have died from the virus in the country, the university data shows.
READ: Global COVID cases up 11% last week, omicron risk high: WHO
Brazil, which has been experiencing a new wave of cases since January, registered 22,281,649 cases as of Thursday, while its Covid death toll rose to 619,248.
India's Covid-19 tally rose to 34,822,040 on Friday with 13,154 new cases as per the health ministry data.
Besides, as many as 268 deaths due to the pandemic were reported since Thursday morning took the total death toll to 480,860
Meanwhile, the country's Omicron tally has reached 961 and at least 320 have recovered, the health ministry said.
Covid situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh logged seven Covid-linked deaths with 509 fresh infections in 24 hours till Thursday morning.
With the detection of the fresh cases after testing 22, 668 samples, the daily-case positivity rate slightly declined to 2.25 per cent from Wednesday’s 2.37 per cent during the period, said the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The fresh numbers reported on Thursday took the country’s total fatalities to 28,070 while the caseload mounted to 15,85,027.
Meanwhile, the mortality rate remained static at 1.77 per cent during the period.
Besides, the recovery rate remained static at 97.72 per cent with the recovery of 395 more patients during the 24-hour period.
Bangladesh reported daily covid cases above 500 after two months. On October 13, the country logged 518 new Covid cases with 17 deaths.
Meanwhile, three more Covid cases of the Omicron variant have been detected in Bangladesh, raising the total tally to seven, according to GISAID, a global initiative on sharing all influenza data, shared the results on Wednesday.
READ: Global Covid cases top 282 million with Omicron surge
On December 9, Bangladesh again logged zero Covid-related death after nearly three weeks as the pandemic was apparently showing signs of easing.
The country reported this year’s first zero Covid-related death in a single day on November 20 along with 178 infections since the pandemic broke out in Bangladesh in March 2020.
Bangladesh reported the highest number of daily fatalities of 264 on August 5 this year, while the highest daily caseload was 16,230 on July 28 this year.
6 provinces in Canada report new daily highs for coronavirus
Coronavirus infections set new one-day highs in six Canadian provinces Wednesday, prompting several provinces to impose more restrictions in hopes of containing the spread of the omicron variant.
The biggest jumps were in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, which are the country’s most populous provinces. Quebec reported more than 13,000 new cases in the previous 24 hours, Ontario had 10,436 and British Columbia listed 2,944.
Manitoba, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador also set new records. Manitoba reported 947 new infections, which broke the previous high of 825 set just a day earlier. Alberta said it had 2,775 and Newfoundland and Labrador reported 312.
Read: 31st at Cox’s Bazar: Strict ban on outdoor events, but hotels buzzing
British Columbia announced it is delaying the full return to classrooms after the Christmas break to give school staff time to implement enhanced health measures. Staff and students whose parents are health workers will return to schools Jan. 3 or 4 as planned. All other students return Jan. 10.
Officials in Newfoundland and Labrador said its schools would shift to remote learning after the holiday break.
Read: Coronavirus cases surge across Australia as omicron spreads
Nunavut territory extended its ``circuit-breaker″ lockdown to Jan. 17 as a rise in infections strains its health care system. The rule put in place before Christmas bans indoor gatherings, closes libraries, gyms, arenas and churches, limits restaurants to takeout service.
WHO chief worried about ‘tsunami’ of omicron, delta cases
The head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday that he’s worried about the omicron and delta variants of COVID-19 producing a “tsunami” of cases between them, but he’s still hopeful that the world will put the worst of the pandemic behind it in 2022.
Two years after the coronavirus first emerged, top officials with the U.N. health agency cautioned that it’s still too early to be reassured by initial data suggesting that omicron, the latest variant, leads to milder disease. First reported last month in southern Africa, it is already the dominant variant in the United States and parts of Europe.
And after 92 of the WHO’s 194 member countries missed a target to vaccinate 40% of their populations by the end of this year, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged everyone to make a “new year’s resolution” to get behind a campaign to vaccinate 70% of countries’ populations by the beginning of July.
According to WHO’s figures, the number of COVID-19 cases recorded worldwide increased by 11% last week compared with the previous week, with nearly 4.99 million newly reported from Dec. 20-26. New cases in Europe — which accounted for more than half of the total — were up 3% while those in the Americas rose 39% and there was a 7% increase in Africa. The global gain followed a gradual increase since October.
“I’m highly concerned that omicron, being more transmissible (and) circulating at the same time as delta, is leading to a tsunami of cases,” Tedros said at an online news conference. That, he said, will put “immense pressure on exhausted health workers and health systems on the brink of collapse.”
WHO said in its weekly epidemiological report that the “overall risk” related to omicron “remains very high.” It cited “consistent evidence” that it has a growth advantage over the delta variant.
It noted that a decline in case incidence has been seen in South Africa, and that early data from that country, the U.K. and Denmark suggest a reduced risk of hospitalization with omicron, but said that more data is needed.
WHO’s emergencies chief, Dr. Michael Ryan, underlined that note of caution. He said it will be important in coming weeks to “suppress transmission of both variants to the minimum that we can.”
READ: Netherlands 'going into lockdown again' to curb omicron
Ryan said that omicron infections began largely among young people, “but what we haven’t seen is the omicron wave fully established in the broader population. And I’m a little nervous to make positive predictions until we see how well the vaccine protection is going to work in those older and more vulnerable populations.”
WHO officials didn’t offer specific comments on decisions by the U.S. and other countries to reduce self-isolation periods. Ryan said “these are judgement calls that countries make” — taking into account scientific, economic and other factors. He noted that the average incubation period to date has been around five to six days.
“We need to be careful about changing tactics and strategies immediately on the basis of what we’re seeing” about omicron, Ryan said.
Tedros renewed longstanding warnings that “ending health inequity remains the key to ending the pandemic.” He said that missing the target of getting 40% of populations vaccinated this year “is not only a moral shame — it cost lives and provided the virus with opportunities to circulate unchecked and mutate.”
Countries largely missed the target because of limited supply to low-income nations for most of the year and then vaccines arriving close to their expiry date, without things such as syringes, he said.
READ: WHO: Omicron detected in 89 countries, cases doubling fast
All the same, “I still remain optimistic that this can be the year we can not only end the acute stage of the pandemic, but we also chart a path to stronger health security,” Tedros said.
New COVID-19 cases in US soar to highest levels on record
More than a year after the vaccine was rolled out, new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. have soared to their highest level on record at over 265,000 per day on average, a surge driven largely by the highly contagious omicron variant.
New cases per day have more than doubled over the past two weeks, eclipsing the old mark of 250,000, set in mid-January, according to data kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The fast-spreading mutant version of the virus has cast a pall over Christmas and New Year’s, forcing communities to scale back or call off their festivities just weeks after it seemed as if Americans were about to enjoy an almost normal holiday season. Thousands of flights have been canceled amid staffing shortages blamed on the virus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious-disease expert, said Wednesday that there is no need to cancel small home gatherings among vaccinated and boosted family and friends.
But “if your plans are to go to a 40- to 50-person New Year’s Eve party with all the bells and whistles and everybody hugging and kissing and wishing each other a happy new year, I would strongly recommend that this year we not do that,” he said.
The threat of omicron and the desire to spend the holidays with friends and loved ones have spurred many Americans to get tested for COVID-19.
Read: India's Omicron tally crosses 350
Aravindh Shankar, 24, flew to San Jose, California, on Christmas from West Lafayette, Indiana, to be with family. Though he felt fine, he decided to get tested Wednesday just to play it safe, since he had been on an airplane.
He and his family spent almost an entire day searching for a testing appointment for him before he went to a site in a parking lot next to the San Jose airport.
“It was actually surprisingly hard,” Shankar said about trying to find a test. “Some people have it harder for sure.”
Read: French kids line up to get vaccine shots as omicron spreads
The picture is grim elsewhere around the world, especially in Europe, with World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying he is worried about omicron combining with the delta variant to produce a “tsunami” of cases. That, he said, will put “immense pressure on exhausted health workers and health systems on the brink of collapse.”
The number of Americans now in the hospital with COVID-19 is running at around 60,000, or about half the figure seen in January, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
While hospitalizations sometimes lag behind cases, the hospital figures may reflect both the protection conferred by the vaccine and the possibility that omicron is not making people as sick as previous versions.
COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have climbed over the past two weeks from an average of 1,200 per day to around 1,500.
Public health experts will be closely watching the numbers in the coming week for indications of the vaccines’ effectiveness in preventing serious illness, keeping people out of the hospital and relieving strain on exhausted health care workers, said Bob Bednarczyk, a professor of global health and epidemiology at Emory University.
CDC data already suggests that the unvaccinated are hospitalized at much higher rates than those who have gotten inoculated, even if the effectiveness of the shots decreases over time, he said.
“If we’re able to weather this surge with hopefully minimal disruptions to the overall health care system, that is a place where vaccines are really showing their worth,” Bednarczyk said.
It’s highly unlikely that hospitalization numbers will ever rise to their previous peak, said Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School Public Health. Vaccines and treatments developed since last year have made it easier to curb the spread of the virus and minimize serious effects among people with breakthrough infections.
“Its going to take some time for people to get attuned to the fact that cases don’t matter the same way they did in the past,” Adalja said. “We have a lot of defense against it.”
But even with fewer people hospitalized compared with past surges, the virus can wreak havoc on hospitals and health care workers, he added.
“In a way, those hospitalizations are worse because they’re all preventable,” he said.
Several European countries, including France, Greece, Britain and Spain, also reported record case counts this week, prompting a ban on music at New Year’s celebrations in Greece and a renewed push to encourage vaccination by French authorities.
WHO reported that new COVID-19 cases worldwide increased 11% last week from the week before, with nearly 4.99 million recorded Dec. 20-26. But the U.N. health agency also noted a decline in cases in South Africa, where omicron was first detected just over a month ago.
Global COVID cases up 11% last week, omicron risk high: WHO
The World Health Organization says the number of COVID-19 cases recorded worldwide increased by 11% last week compared with the previous week, with the biggest increase in the Americas. The gain followed a gradual increase since October.
The U.N. health agency said in its weekly epidemiological report released late Tuesday that there were nearly 4.99 million newly reported cases around the world from Dec. 20-26.
Europe accounted for more than half the total, with 2.84 million, though that amounted to only a 3% increase over the previous week. It also had the highest infection rate of any region, with 304.6 new cases per 100,000 residents.
WHO said that new cases in the Americas were up 39% to nearly 1.48 million, and the region had the second-highest infection rate with 144.4 new cases per 100,000 residents. The U.S. alone saw more than 1.18 million cases, a 34% increase.
Reported new cases in Africa were up 7% to nearly 275,000.
The agency said that “the overall risk related to the new variant … omicron remains very high.” It cited “consistent evidence” that it has a growth advantage over the delta variant, which remains dominant in parts of the world.
It noted that a decline in case incidence has been seen in South Africa, and that early data from that country, the U.K. and Denmark suggest a reduced risk of hospitalization with omicron. But it said that more data is needed “to understand the clinical markers of severity including the use of oxygen, mechanical ventilation and death, and how severity may be impacted by vaccination and/or prior … infection.”
WHO said that the number of newly reported deaths worldwide last week was down 4% to 44,680.