France sees over 1 lakh daily cases as Omicron hits hard

Covid hospitalisations have doubled over the past month in the country

Paris, Dec. 26: France has recorded more than

100,000 virus infections in a single day for the first time in the pandemic and

Covid-19 hospitalisations have doubled over the past month, as the fast-spreading Omicron variant complicates the French government’s efforts to stave off a new lockdown.

More than 1 in 100 people in the Paris region have tested positive in the past week, according to the regional health service.

Most new infections are linked to the Omicron variant, which government experts predict will be dominant in France in the coming days. Omicron is already dominant in Britain, right across the Channel.

Meanwhile a surge in Delta variant infections in recent months is pushing up hospital admissions in France, and put ICUs under strain again over the Christmas holidays. More than 1,000 people in France with the virus died over the past week, bringing the country’s overall death toll to more than

122,000.

President Emmanuel Macron’s government is holding emergency meetings Monday to discuss the next steps in tackling the virus. Some scientists and educators have urged delaying the post-holiday return to school, or suggested re-imposing a curfew.

But France’s education minister says schools should open as usual on Jan.

3, and other government officials are working to avoid measures that would hammer the country’s economic recovery.

Instead the French government is hoping that stepped-up vaccinations will be enough. The government is pushing a draft law that would require vaccination to enter all restaurants and many public venues, instead of the current health pass system which allows people to produce a negative test or proof of recovery if they're not vaccinated.

In neighbouring Belgium, the government imposed new measures starting Sunday that ordered cultural venues like movie theaters and concert halls to close.

Some venues defied the ban, and thousands of performers, event organisers and others demonstrated Sunday in Brussels against the decision, carrying signs reading The Show Must Go On or No Culture No Future. They accuse the Belgian government of double standards because it allowed Christmas markets, with their boisterous crowds. —

— AP People line up to get a swab for the Covid-19 test for travelling requirement at a mobile testing facility outside a commercial office building in Beijing, on Sunday.