“Covid 19: Seventeen European nations break grim Covid-19 record as Omicron sets in for new year”, New Zealand Herald

By Alex Turner-Cohen, Auckland, 2 Jan. 2022

Europe has hit a grim new milestone as the Omicron strain of Covid-19 prompts cases to surge to record levels across the continent.

To start their new year off with a whimper, more than 4.9 million coronavirus cases were detected over the past week across 52 European nations and territories.

That is the worst week the region has ever faced.

And of those 52 countries, 17 have broken new records for the most amount of cases in a seven-day period.

In the most extreme example, France’s current weekly total stands at more than one million — which accounts for 10 per cent of all the cases it has ever recorded. Its health service said in the last week, more than one in 100 people in the Paris region have tested positive.

In England, health authorities estimate the highest ratio in the hardest-hit areas saw one in 25 people infected with Covid-19.

It comes as analysis from news wire service Agence France-Presse (AFP) found that on New Year’s Day (local time), Europe surpassed 100 million Covid-19 cases since the virus emerged two years ago.

There have officially been 289 million cases of the coronavirus since the disease was first detected in Wuhan in December 2019, meaning European cases make up more than a third of that number.

Yet hospitalisation rates in the region have dropped slightly over the past week.

And European deaths have fallen by 7 per cent compared to the prior week, to a seven-day rolling average of 3413 deaths.

That’s more than Australia’s total death toll since March 2020 when the virus first arrived – a little over 2200 deaths.

While Europe’s current number of deaths is high, it’s not as dire as this time last year, where the daily death average was 5735.

In terms of grim milestones, it didn’t end there for Europe.

“The countries with the highest ratio of infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the world were all in Europe,” AFP reported.

“Denmark scored worst with 2045, followed by Cyprus with 1969 and Ireland with 1964.”

Europe didn’t score the worst for sheer number of deaths, though.

At the time of writing, there have been roughly 5.4 million deaths with Covid-19 attributed as the cause worldwide, according to Our World in Data.

The US ranks worst in terms of total number of deaths, with 824,000 people who have passed away with Covid-19, followed by Brazil at 619,000 and India recording 481,000.

In fourth position was Russia at 303,000 and then the UK with 149,000 deaths.

With skyrocketing cases, some European nations returned to lockdowns over the Christmas-New Year period — but other countries remained adamant that lockdowns were not necessary.

In Europe, the Netherlands spent the Christmas and New Year period in lockdown with all non-essential shops, bars and restaurants closed.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland imposed new restrictions on the size of social gatherings in hospitality venues.

However, England and France ruled out lockdowns despite their startling case numbers.

Over the past 24 hours, France had 219,126 cases while England had 162,572 cases of Covid-19.