From US To China: Here's How The World Is Dealing With COVID Amid Omicron Spread

The US on Monday reported over 1 million COVID-19 cases amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.

The US health authorities registered more than three times as many new cases as in any previous wave of the coronavirus, over 1 million reported on Monday alone, reported USA Today.

A substantial increase in coronavirus infections was expected when this week's numbers came out, but nothing like this. About 1 of every 100 Americans will have been reported as a positive case in just the last week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris planned to meet with the White House coronavirus response team to discuss a course of action as omicron becomes ubiquitous, reported USA Today.

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Johns Hopkins University data showed about 1,042,000 more cases than the day before, and it wasn't immediately clear that all states had reported in. That count clearly includes hefty numbers of backlogged cases.

The preliminary total for Monday could drive the country to a weekly average of close to 450,000 cases per day. The previous highest total for a whole week, 1.76 million, figures to be not only surpassed but possibly doubled.

The US has recorded more than 55 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, or one for every six people in the country -- and more than 826,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

France sixth country with more than 10 mn COVID infections

France became the sixth country in the world to report more than 10 million COVID-19 infections since the outbreak of the pandemic.

China locks down city of 1.2 million

More than one million people in a city in central China were being confined to their homes on Tuesday after three asymptomatic coronavirus cases were recorded in the country's latest mass lockdown.

Beijing has pursued a "zero Covid" approach with tight border restrictions and targeted lockdowns since the virus first emerged.

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But the strategy has come under pressure with a series of recent local outbreaks and with just a month to go until the Winter Olympics.

Yuzhou, a city with a population of around 1.17 million people in Henan province, announced that from Monday night all citizens were required to stay home to control the spread of the virus.

The announcement was triggered by the discovery of three cases in the last couple of days.

The world is witnessing a massive surge in coronavirus cases driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the virus. More restrictions and curbs are kicking in in various countries to control the spread of the virus.

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