NEW YORK: Holiday travel headaches and safety worries swelled on Sunday with thousands of flights cancelled, events scrapped and new Omicron cases soaring, as people wrap up Christmas celebrations bruised by a resurgent COVID-19 pandemic.
The highly transmissible Omicron strain has sent new cases skyrocketing across the globe, with countries reviving dreaded lockdowns, major sports leagues cancelling Boxing Day football and rugby fixtures, and cruise ships returning to port with COVID-infected passengers.In China's Xi'an city, 13 million residents were confined to their homes Sunday amid tightened restrictions as the country recorded its biggest COVID-19 infection numbers in 21 months.
"There are still some issues now of people having trouble getting tested," Fauci told ABC Sunday talk show"This Week."Still, cases have soared. New York's health department said COVID-19 paediatric hospitalisations have risen four-fold over the past two weeks as Omicron gained hold.In Florida, health officials say new COVID-19 cases spiked to 125,201 for the week ending Dec 23, four times its previous week's total.
"We're sailing on a petri dish," Ashley Peterson, a 34-year-old passenger on the ship, told the Post."I feel like I just spent my past week at a superspreader event."Aircrew and ground staff have fallen sick or gone into quarantine after exposure to COVID-19, multiple airlines acknowledged. But"despite our best efforts, we've had to cancel a number of flights, and additional flight cancellations and other delays remain a possibility as we see more omicron community spread," the airline said in a statement.Chinese carriers, notably China Eastern and Air China, have scrubbed more than 2,000 flights over the long weekend, including many going in and out of Xi'an Xianyang International airport, according to tracker data.
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