CHICA­GO (AP) — More than a year af­ter the vac­cine was rolled out, new cas­es of COVID-19 in the U.S. have soared to the high­est lev­el on record at over 265,000 per day on av­er­age, a surge dri­ven large­ly by the high­ly con­ta­gious omi­cron vari­ant.

● In­fec­tion rates are surg­ing in many parts of the world, fu­elled by the spread of the high­ly-in­fec­tious Omi­cron vari­ant ●

BERLIN (AP) — The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion says the num­ber of COVID-19 cas­es record­ed world­wide in­creased by 11% last week com­pared with the pre­vi­ous week, with the biggest in­crease in the Amer­i­c­as. The gain fol­lowed a grad­ual in­crease since Oc­to­ber.

A Pun­dit has re­newed the call, on be­half of the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty, for the re­sump­tion of cre­ma­tions ac­cord­ing to Hin­du rites.

■  Even if Omi­cron is milder than Delta, high trans­mis­si­bil­i­ty means three times more cas­es, hence more hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions and deaths

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. health of­fi­cials on Mon­day cut iso­la­tion re­stric­tions for asymp­to­matic Amer­i­cans who catch the coro­n­avirus from 10 to five days, and sim­i­lar­ly short­ened the time that close con­tacts need to quar­an­tine.

The Po­lice Ser­vice has con­firmed that it has de­tained 100 peo­ple who were on board a ves­sel in Ch­aguara­mas, yes­ter­day. The group was processed and sub­se­quent­ly re­leased pend­ing fur­ther en­quiries.

The na­tion­al death toll for COVID-19 is inch­ing clos­er to 3,000 as the Min­istry of Health record­ed 25 more deaths from the dis­ease to­day, Mon­day 27 De­cem­ber 2021.  As of to­day, the na­tion­al death toll now stands at 2,793 lives lost.

The res­i­dents of Beau­car­ro, Freeport, have is­sued an of­fi­cial state­ment fol­low­ing news that the plans have been scrapped to set up a mass body stor­age fa­cil­i­ty to house de­ceased COVID-19 vic­tims in their com­mu­ni­ty.

To­day, 27th De­cem­ber, is In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Epi­dem­ic Pre­pared­ness, and the Unit­ed Na­tions and the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion is re­mind­ing coun­tries around the world bat­tling the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, that this won’t be the last pan­dem­ic the world will face.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Is­rael has be­gun tri­als of a fourth dose of coro­n­avirus vac­cine in what is be­lieved to be the first study of its kind.

The mass body stor­age for COVID-19 fa­tal­i­ties in Beau­car­ro, Freeport, has been scrapped and the Fu­ner­al Prac­ti­tion­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion is now look­ing for an­oth­er suit­able site to es­tab­lish the fa­cil­i­ty. This is ac­cord­ing to the As­so­ci­a­tion's pres­i­dent Kei­th Bel­grove, on Mon­day.