Here's the latest on the pandemic from around the world.
Europe
Britain
Britain on Tuesday reported 112,458 new cases of COVID-19 and 219 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, according to government data.
The number of cases in the last seven days has fallen 2.2% to 638,241, the data showed. This week the UK Health Security Agency has started including possible reinfections in its daily figures in instances when people test positive twice more than 90 days apart.
Italy
Italy reported 133,142 COVID-19 related cases on Tuesday, against 57,715 the day before, the health ministry said, while the number of deaths rose to 427 from 349.
Italy has registered 146,925 deaths linked to COVID-19 since its outbreak emerged in February 2020, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the ninth highest in the world. The country has reported 11.1 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with COVID-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 19,873 on Tuesday, down from 19,913 a day earlier.
There were 107 new admissions to intensive care units, down from 112 on Monday. The total number of intensive care patients decreased to 1,549 from a previous 1,584.
Some 1.25 million tests for COVID-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 478,314, the health ministry said.
Romania
The number of new coronavirus infections in Romania reached a record high of 40,018 in the past 24 hours, government data showed on Tuesday, with hospitalisations on the rise as the country's vaccine uptake lags.
Romania is the European Union's second-least vaccinated country after Bulgaria, with roughly 41 percent of the population fully inoculated, reflecting mistrust in state institutions and poor vaccine education.
On Monday there were 903 COVID-19 patients in intensive care units across the country, of which 84 percent are not vaccinated, official data showed.
While the number of hospitalisations has been rising, it is still far below the highs seen at the height of the previous pandemic wave in October and November, when hospitals were overwhelmed and Romania topped global lists of new coronavirus deaths per million.
Ninety-five people died of the virus within the last 24 hours. The pandemic has killed 60,122 people in the country of 20 million.
From Tuesday, Romania has dropped a demand for travellers to quarantine if they are vaccinated, have proof of recovery from COVID-19 or can provide a negative test result, regardless of where they are coming from.
Russia
Russia reported a record daily number of COVID-19 cases on Tuesday as the Omicron variant of coronavirus spread across the country, authorities said.
New daily cases jumped to 125,836, up from 124,070 a day earlier. The government coronavirus task force also reported 663 deaths in the last 24 hours.
Portugal
Portugal's Prime Minister Antonio Costa, re-elected for a second term on Sunday, has tested positive for COVID-19 and will stay in isolation for a period of seven days, his office said on Tuesday.
"The prime minister carried out a routine self-test for COVID-19 today and had a positive result," the office said in a statement, adding Costa had no symptoms. "This (positive) result has already been confirmed by an antigen test."
Costa spent the last two weeks holding campaign rallies and events across the country, often attracting big crowds. He won his third mandate with 117 parliamentary seats - the Socialist Party's only second full majority in Portugal's democratic history.
Americas
Mexico
Mexico registered 198 more deaths from COVID-19 on Monday, according to health ministry data, bringing the country's overall death toll in the pandemic to 306,091.
US
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday advised against travel to a dozen countries because of high rates of coronavirus infection, including Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Ecuador, Kosovo, Philippines and Paraguay.
The CDC now lists nearly 130 countries and territories with COVID-19 cases as "Level Four: Very High." It also added Anguilla, French Guiana, Moldova and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to its highest level on Monday.
The U.S. State Department also raised its travel advisory for Mexico and some of the other nations listed by the CDC to "Level 4: Do Not Travel."
Since mid-December, the U.S. government has added more than 60 countries and territories to its list of places to avoid, citing the Omicron coronavirus variant.
The CDC also raised travel warnings for 11 countries and territories to "Level Three: High" that urges unvaccinated Americans to avoid non-essential travel: Bhutan, Brunei, Comoros, French Polynesia, the Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Liberia, Nepal and Oman. It now lists about 53 countries and territories at High."
The CDC lists 16 countries at "Level 2: Moderate" or "Level 1: Low" and 40 other destinations are listed as unknown.
The United States agreed last month to lift travel restrictions on eight southern African countries that were imposed in November over Omicron, including South Africa.
Africa and the Middle East
Turkey
Turkey has recorded 102,601 new COVID-19 cases in the space of 24 hours, surpassing the 100,000 mark for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, health ministry data showed on Tuesday.
In late December, daily cases stood at about 20,000 but have since surged. Data also showed 198 people died due to COVID-19 in the same 24-hour period, taking the total death toll to more than 87,000 people.
Israel
A global leader in vaccine rollout during early waves of the coronavirus, Israel's government has adopted "Living with COVID" as its mantra since a few months before Omicron arrived.
The variant is milder than previous incarnations of the virus, but that's scant consolation to the medics and nurses staffing COVID-19 wards whose workloads have soared again in parallel with case numbers.
"The staff are exhausted," said Yoram Weiss, acting director general of Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. "It's not like we're starting the first outbreak where everybody was full of energy."
Though Omicron is causing proportionally fewer severe infections and deaths, Israel's daily caseload skyrocketed to beyond 80,000 in late January before easing back over the past few days.
The sheer magnitude of the surge has meant that coronavirus wards have been filling up fast while numbers of staff, many kept at home by Omicron infection, have fallen, also impacting quality of care.
"We have on average 10-15 percent less doctors and nurses, whereas we need 20-30 percent more because of the flood of patients," Dror Mevorach, who heads Hadassah's coronavirus ward, told Reuters.
Asia-Pacific
Japan
More than half of Tokyo's hospital beds set aside for COVID-19 patients were occupied on Tuesday, a level that officials have previously flagged as a criterion for requesting a state of emergency.
The capital and most of Japan are now under curbs to contain record coronavirus cases driven by the contagious Omicron variant.
Tokyo has set aside almost 7,000 hospital beds for COVID patients, and admissions have risen sharply this month, reaching 50.7 percent on Tuesday. New infections numbered 14,445.
Governor Yuriko Koike had said 50 percent bed usage would be a threshold for requesting an emergency declaration from the central government.
But last week she told reporters such a request would not be automatic, and would also take into consideration the opinions of health experts and the number of serious cases.
On Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the government was not currently considering declaring a state of emergency.
The current curbs empower regional governors to order restaurants and bars to shorten their business hours and stop serving alcohol.
A full state of emergency, not used in Japan since September last year, would involve stricter measures, such as fines for non-compliant businesses as well as attendance limits at sporting events and concerts
China
Mainland China reported 66 new COVID-19 cases on Jan. 31, up from 58 a day earlier, the national health authority said on Tuesday.
The National Health Commission in its daily bulletin said 27 of the new cases were local infections, with 39 coming from overseas. Of the local transmissions, 13 were in the province of Zhejiang, with 7 in northern Tianjin and two in the capital Beijing.
The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, stood at 32, down from 52 a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 106,139, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,636.
South Korea
South Korea reported 18,343 new COVID-19 cases for Monday, a highest daily record, amid the spread of the highly infectious Omicron variant, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Tuesday.
Reuters
