The head of the World Health Organization has called for the world to pull together and make the difficult decisions needed to end the Covid-19 pandemic within the next year.
"2022 must be the year we end the pandemic," WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.
As the end-of-year festivities approach, the UN health agency chief acknowledged that "all of us want to spend time with friends and family. All of us want to get back to normal".
But, he said, to get back to normal, people need to protect themselves now as cases surge - fuelled by the fast-spreading Omicron variant.
Since it was first reported in South Africa in November, Omicron has been identified in dozens of countries, dashing hopes that the worst of the pandemic is over.
Despite indications it is not more severe than the Delta variant - still the dominant strain - Omicron has been shown in early data to have higher transmissibility and a worrying resistance to vaccines.
With cases rising rapidly, Mr Tedros stressed it was better to cancel events "now and celebrate later than to celebrate now and grieve later".
"We have to focus now on ending this pandemic."
Mr Tedros insisted it was possible to halt the pandemic but said it would require using all the tools at our disposal, ranging from vaccines to mask-wearing and physical distancing.
And perhaps most importantly, he said, the world needed to end the glaring inequity in access to vaccines.
"If we are to end the pandemic in the coming year, we must end inequity," he said.
Omicron variant leads to 'predominately mild disease' in South Africa
The chairperson of the South African Medical Association has said the Omicron variant leads to predominately mild disease in that country and that fewer people are being hospitalised with the virus.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Dr Angelique Coetzee said: "In South Africa, it's a mild disease and in the rest of the world, it's a severe disease.
"It's highly contagious, but it's still a mild disease in South Africa, maybe in Europe it's not."
She said 40% of their adult population has been vaccinated, fewer young people have received the vaccine and South Africa also has a high burden of TB and HIV.
She said those in ICUs in South Africa are mostly unvaccinated.
Dr Coetzee said South Africa has passed the peak of this wave and there may be another peak again in January.
She said the typical symptoms of the Omicron variant are milder, and people are presenting to GPs with aches and pains, headache and feeling unwell.
She said the vaccine is helping to protect people from serious illness and South Africa has not started boosters for the wider adult population yet, only for healthcare workers.
Dr Coetzee expects a surge will happen at the beginning of January and they did not reach the same peak as they reached with Delta.
Omicron cases doubling in 1.5 - 3 days
The Omicron Covid-19 variant has been reported in 89 countries and the number of cases is doubling in 1.5 to three days in areas with community transmission, the World Health Organization has said.
Two years into the pandemic, the United States is confronting another dark winter, with the Omicron variant threatening to worsen an already dangerous surge of cases.
The cumulative number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the United States exceeded 50.8 million as of yesterday, with the death toll surpassing 806,400, according to data released by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.
As the Delta variant continues to wreak havoc and the Omicron variant spreads fast in the country, the US is currently facing a severe epidemic situation and greater need for Covid-19 testing. Critics have pointed out that the current testing capacity of the US is far from meeting the need.
A US appeals court reinstated a nationwide vaccine-or-testing Covid-19 mandate for large businesses, which covers 80 million American workers, prompting opponents to rush to the Supreme Court to ask it to intervene.
The Netherlands went into lockdown yesterday and the possibility of more Covid-19 restrictions being imposed ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays loomed over several European countries as the Omicron variant spreads rapidly.
Britain reported a surge in Omicron cases on Saturday, while the country's health minister yesterday declined to rule out the chance of further restrictions before Christmas.
Germany ruled out a Christmas lockdown but warned a fifth Covid-19 wave could no longer be stopped. It will also impose quarantine on travellers from Britain from midnight tonight and require a negative Covid-19 test for entry into the country.
Italy is considering new measures to avoid a surge in infections during the holidays, local newspapers reported.
The Kremlin is convinced that the World Health Organization will recognise Russia's flagship Sputnik V vaccine within a few months, the Interfax news agency cited Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying.
Japan will extend a curb on foreigners entering the country beyond year-end, the Yomiuri newspaper reported, citing anonymous government sources.
Thailand's public health ministry will propose reinstating mandatory quarantine for foreign visitors, while the country reported its first case of local Omicron transmission.
Australian authorities resisted calls to make masks mandatory indoors and limit the numbers of patrons at Sydney venues, even as new infections lingered near records.
Beijing said it is advising residents not to leave town during a major holiday season in early 2022.
French health regulator approves vaccines for children aged 5-11
Meanwhile, Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) health regulator today approved the Covid-19 vaccine for all children aged 5-11.
"The HAS suggests that all parents who want it can have their children aged 5 to 11 years vaccinated", said Lise Alter, one of the doctors charged with the risk evaluation of new drugs.
France last week started vaccinating children with medical preconditions that require special protection and ramped up logistics to roll out vaccination of all children in the age group once the HAS approves the move.
"With the arrival of the Omicron variant, which is more contagious than the Delta variant, we can expect an increase in severe forms in children without pre-existing health conditions", Ms Alter said.
