The Covid-19 infection is surging across the United States, which recorded nearly half of the million cases across the world in the last 24 hours. California is the worst hit region in the US, recording 86,000 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours.
The Omicron variant of coronavirus has pushed the global cases of Covid-19 to above one million for second straight day, news agency Bloomberg reported. The world has been grappling with the coronavirus disease for two years now, but there has been little relief. And the Omicron variant threatens to bring back lockdown-like situation again.
The first day when global tally topped the million mark was Monday. More than 1.44 million Covid-19 cases were recorded across the world, which smashed the prior record after factoring out a day in December 2020 when Turkey backdated a significant number of cases.
The Covid-19 infection is surging across the United States, which recorded nearly half of the million cases across the world in the last 24 hours. California is the worst hit region in the US, recording 86,000 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours.
An outbreak of Omicron exploded in Australia too, which saw record hospitalisations. New infections in Sydney and surrounding parts of New South Wales state skyrocketed to more than 11,000, up from 6,000 a day earlier. Victoria state also reported a record 3,700 cases, up by more than 1,000 from the previous record set on Tuesday.
This prompted Prime Minister Scott Morrison to schedule an emergency national cabinet meeting.
China has already locked down Xian over rise in Covid-19 cases. The 13 million people in the city have not been able to leave their homes for a week and are virtually dependent on deliveries of necessities.
Xian reported 151 domestically transmitted infections with confirmed symptoms for Tuesday, or nearly all of the 152 cases nationwide, bringing the total number of local Xian cases to nearly 1,000 during the Dec. 9-28 period. No cases of the Omicron variant have been announced in the city.
France reported a record high of 179,807 new confirmed coronavirus cases in a 24-hour period on Tuesday, one of the highest one-day tallies worldwide since the start of the pandemic.
