Here is the latest news on the COVID-19 pandemic from around the world.
EUROPE
UK
Britain on Friday reported a further 89,176 cases of COVID-19 and 277 more deaths, government statistics showed.
Cases and deaths are both down by 2.7 percent over the last seven days compared with the week before.
Britain will start rolling out Pfizer's COVID-19 pill to vulnerable people next month, the health ministry said on Friday, targeting the treatment at people with compromised immune systems for whom the vaccine can be less effective.
The health ministry said that Pfizer's antiviral treatment Paxlovid, a combination of Pfizer's pill with older antiviral ritonavir, will be made available to thousands of people from Feb. 10.
Italy
As the Omicron variant swept Italy late last year, it was unvaccinated elderly people and those who had not had a booster dose four or more months after their initial shots who were most likely to go to hospital or die from COVID-19, according to data and doctors.
Within the unvaccinated group, people over 80 years old accounted for the vast majority of admissions, followed by 60-79-year-olds.
A similar picture is played out in ICU and mortality records: people being admitted to intensive care totalled 31.3 per 100,000 people who had not been vaccinated, up from 23.1 in November.
Germany
Germany has the wave of infections from the fast-spreading Omicron coronavirus variant "well under control" and may consider lifting some restrictions after a peak in late February, its health minister said on Friday.
Germany's Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases reported 190,148 positive tests within 24 hours on Friday, 49,988 more than a week earlier, and 170 deaths in connection with the virus, bringing the death toll to 117,484.
"I often read and hear that politicians lost control over the pandemic. However, this is not the case. We were prepared for the infection numbers we have at the moment - in fact, these are even lower than expected," Health Minister Karl Lauterbach told a news conference.
Finland
Finland will begin gradually easing COVID-19 restrictions from Feb. 1 instead of mid-February as initially planned as the burden on its hospitals eases, the government said late on Thursday.
On Jan. 18, Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Finland would begin scaling back restrictions from mid-February, but signs of stabilization in the infection rate caused by the Omicron variant of the virus led the government to alter its plan.
"The burden on intensive care units has taken a turn in a better direction," Finland's minister for health and social affairs Hanna Sarkkinen told reporters.
Russia
Russia's COVID-19 deaths passed the 700,000 mark on Friday, Reuters calculations based on new data from the Rosstat state statistics service showed.
Rosstat said on Friday that 54,630 people died from COVID or related causes in December after monthly coronavirus deaths hit a record high of nearly 90,000 in November and made Russia a country with the second-highest number of deaths in the world after the United States.
ASIA-PACIFIC
Philippines
The Philippines will grant entry to visitors vaccinated against COVID-19 from Feb. 10, its government said on Friday, in an effort to boost a tourism sector decimated by the pandemic.
The archipelago nation of more than 7,000 islands had planned to reopen in December, but that was aborted over concerns about the Omicron variant.
Citizens of 150 countries that have visa-free entry to the Philippines will be allowed to enter.
Australia
Australia suffered its deadliest day of the COVID-19 pandemic on Friday with nearly 100 deaths, but several large states said they expect hospital admissions to fall amid hopes that the latest wave of infections would begin to subside.
Fuelled by the fast-spreading Omicron variant, infections exploded during the past four weeks, with around two million cases recorded. Up until then, Australia had counted just 400,000 cases since the pandemic first hit the country nearly two years ago.
"Generally the situation is stable ... and we're expecting further falls (in hospital cases)," Queensland state Chief Health Officer John Gerrard said during a media briefing, as hospital cases in the state fell for the third straight day to 818.
MIDDLE EAST
Turkey
Turkey has recorded 93,586 new COVID-19 cases in the space of 24 hours, its highest daily figure of the pandemic, health ministry data showed on Friday.
Daily cases have surged to record high levels in recent weeks with the spread of the Omicron variant but Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has said the new variant would reduce the severity of the pandemic due to a lower hospitalisation rate.
AMERICAS
US
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has "persistent deficiencies" in its ability to prepare for and respond to public health emergencies, the US congressional watchdog warned in a report released on Thursday, citing concerns raised by the COVID-19 pandemic.
HHS is at "high risk" of mismanaging a future crisis, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Congressional auditing agency, said, noting that the department failed to implement some previously made recommendations to improve its pandemic response.
"As devastating as the COVID-19 pandemic has been, more frequent extreme weather events, new viruses, and bad actors who threaten to cause intentional harm loom, making the deficiencies GAO has identified particularly concerning," the report said. "Not being sufficiently prepared for a range of public health emergencies can also negatively affect the time and resources needed to achieve full recovery."
Canada
Canada has moved past the worst of the Omicron variant of coronavirus on some parameters, but Canadians still need to be prudent as hospitalizations continue to rise, the country's top health official said Friday.
Omicron infections started spreading rapidly last month, taking over the dominant variant designation from Delta and forcing authorities to impose restrictions on businesses and social gatherings.
"Getting to perhaps the peak is one thing but coming down the other side of the wave includes a lot of people could get infected, and some of them could potentially be infected with BA.2," Tam said, referring to a subvariant of the Omicron coronavirus variant that has been recorded in some European countries.
