In Italy, 78,313 coronavirus infections have been recorded in the past 24 hours. This is a record since the pandemic broke out, the Italian health authorities reported on Tuesday. In addition, 202 deaths were reported that can be traced back to the coronavirus. New record values for new corona infections were also reported from Greece and Great Britain. The Omikron variant is likely to be responsible for this in all countries.
In Italy, over a million smears have been counted in the past 24 hours, which is also a record since the beginning of the pandemic. 7.5 percent of those tested were positive. According to State Secretary for Health Pierpaolo Sileri, over 60 percent of the cases can be traced back to the Omikron variant. Long queues formed in front of the test stations on Tuesday. In some cities, the tradeoffs have become tight. 1,145 corona patients are in the intensive care units of the Italian hospitals.
In view of the increasing number of corona infections, the Italian government is considering shortening the quarantine period for people with three vaccinations from ten to five days. The quarantine requirement for vaccinated people who have come into contact with those who tested positive could be completely abolished, the cabinet is considering.
The government is also exploring the possibility of reducing home isolation for health care workers who have come into contact with people who test positive outside of their work environment. Such a measure would aim to avoid bottlenecks in health workers due to forced isolation.
Experts estimate that because of the rapidly growing number of infections as a result of the Omikron variant, ten million Italians could be in home isolation in the next ten days, either because they infected themselves or because they came into contact with people who tested positive. Currently, 2.5 million of the 59 million Italians are in home isolation.
The Greek health authority registered 21,657 new corona infections from Monday to Tuesday. That is more than twice as much as the day before and a new negative record since the beginning of the pandemic. So far, the number of new infections in the country with its around eleven million inhabitants has been 3,000 to 5,000 cases every day.
The experts attribute the sudden increase to the Omikron variant, which is particularly common in Athens. The authorities registered a good half of the new infections on Tuesday in the metropolitan area of the capital, around 70 percent were omicrons, according to state television.
The number of new infections recorded has also reached a new record in Great Britain with 129,471. The authorities say that the new cases in Scotland and Northern Ireland are not included in these data due to different approaches over the holidays. 18 more deaths are reported.
In Turkey, the number of daily coronavirus cases exceeded 30,000 on Tuesday for the first time since October 19, according to the Ministry of Health. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca warned of an increase in cases because of the omicron variant. According to the data, 32,176 infections and 184 deaths from the virus have been recorded in Turkey. The number of daily deaths has been just under 200 in the last few weeks, the number of cases in this period fell to around 20,000.