Daily COVID-19 cases in Hong Kong, which is grappling with a quickly growing Omicron wave, topped 2,000 for the first time today as the public health system struggled to cope.
Meanwhile, cases soared in New Zealand, another government that had kept COVID-19 low in earlier surges, but is now coming to terms with the much more transmissible Omicron variant.
Omicron keeps foothold in high-containment settings
Hong Kong is struggling with a testing backlog, but today it reported 2,071 cases, with about 4,500 preliminary positives, according to the South China Morning Post. A temporary lab set up by a company on the mainland is expected to begin operation tomorrow to help speed up testing.
Occupancy rates of isolation beds at public hospitals have reached 90% capacity, and infections in hospital staff adding to the pressure on health system. In another development, health officials announced delaying resuming in-person schooling for 2 more weeks.
Elsewhere, New Zealand reported a record 981 cases today, and the country's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the rise isn't surprising, and that the country will remain at phase 2 as long as cases stay between 1,000 and 5,000 a day, according to Radio New Zealand.
Ardern said the country can expect to see an unprecedented surge, but its vaccination efforts will help it avoid large numbers of serious illnesses and deaths.
More global headlines
- New Zealand is among the locations where protests over COVID-19 measures, modeled after the truck convoys in Canada, have taken root. Others include Europe and Australia.
- Vietnam tomorrow will start allowing international flights to resume, according to Reuters. The country had early success by barring flights, but experienced later COVID-19 waves. About 98% of the country's population has received at least two vaccine doses.
- South Korea is the latest country to green-light fourth doses of COVID-19 vaccine for high-risk groups.
- The global COVID-19 totals today climbed to 412,913,570 million cases and 5,822,052 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard.
