Europe tops 100m cases

Europe has recorded over 100 million coronavirus cases, more than a third of all infections worldwide, since the start of the pandemic, as governments face tough choices between controlling the virus and keeping economies open.

The continent has once again become the pandemic's epicentre in recent months, and is battling an upsurge of cases spurred on by the highly transmissible Omicron strain of the virus.

The European region, including 52 countries and territories from the Atlantic coast to Azerbaijan and Russia, has recorded 100,074,753 infections of Covid-19 over the past two years, an AFP tally of official figures showed at 1845 GMT.

Of the European infections, more than 4.9 million have been reported over the past seven days alone, with 17 out of 52 countries or territories beating their previous record of most cases in a single week.

However, governments in Europe are showing no signs of imposing the life-halting restrictions that they imposed when the earlier coronavirus waves hit the continent.

France announced an easing of Covid restrictions from today and Britain's health minister said curbs were an "absolute last resort".

Fully vaccinated people in France who test positive will only have to isolate for seven days, and can leave quarantine after five days if they show a negative test.

Some studies have sparked hope that Omicron does not cause Covid as severe as the Delta variant, with some governments factoring that into their decisions to ease curbs.

But the World Health Organization has warned of trying times ahead, saying Omicron could lead to "a tsunami of cases" because of its high transmissibility.

The virus surges dampened New Year's celebrations around the world, with events cancelled and tens of millions spending the holidays under some form of restrictions.

The British government, which is responsible for health policies in England only, has put in place some precautions but so far refused to curb socialising and large events despite record case numbers last week. It has pointed to the less dramatic rise in hospitalisations compared with case numbers as justification.

Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have all rolled out new rules since Christmas limiting gatherings.