Italy’s government is considering new measures to avoid a surge in COVID infections during the holiday period, local newspapers reported, amid worries over the spread of the Omicron variant.Īfter holding a meeting with ministers on December 23, Prime Minister Mario Draghi could impose an obligation on the vaccinated to show a negative test to access crowded places, including discos and stadiums, daily Corriere della Sera reported. 11:01 GMT Italy eyes new COVID-19 measures amid Omicron worries: reports Some European countries have brought Christmas holidays forward, and French conservative presidential candidate Valerie Pecresse has called for an extension of them in order to help ensure any infections caught over year-end holidays are discovered before children return to school. 11:38 GMT France not planning to extend Christmas holidays due to COVID: ministerįrench Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said on BFM television that the government has no plans to extend the Christmas school holidays because of the rapid spread of the Omicron variant. The Kremlin on Tuesday said Russia had still not handed over all the information needed for the vaccine to be approved by the WHO because of differences in regulatory standards. The Kremlin is convinced that the World Health Organization (WHO) will recognise Russia’s flagship Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine within a few months, the Interfax news agency cited Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying. 12:00 GMT Kremlin convinced WHO will approve Sputnik V vaccine within months Many countries are reimposing travel restrictions and other measures weeks after the variant was first detected in South Africa. Germany’s health authority also announced that the United Kingdom had been added to its list of COVID high-risk countries, which will mean tighter travel restrictions. The announcement on Sunday comes as Europe tries to rein in the rising number of infections linked to the highly mutated strain. President Emmanuel Macron has come under criticism for resisting calls from medical experts in late January for a nationwide lockdown, in the face of rising cases, in favour of an overnight curfew and other restrictions.Iran has detected its first case of infection by the omicron variant of the coronavirus. Questioned on the availability of vaccines for health workers, Castex promised that "the doses are coming, we will have a lot of them in the weeks and months to come." But he did not rule out stricter measures if the situation continued to deteriorate.ĭescribing the pressure on hospitals, the minister said 80% of scheduled operations would have to be postponed, and the average age of intensive care patients was getting lower.Įarlier on Thursday, French Prime Minister Jean Castex called for people "more than ever to stick together" in the face of an "extremely strong" third wave, during a visit to a hospital in Melun, south-east of Paris. Véran defended the decision, questioning whether a full lockdown would be accepted by French people who were "exhausted by fighting tirelessly for a year".
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