Here's the latest on the COVID-19 pandemic from around the world.
Europe
Italy
Italy reported 167,206 COVID-19 related cases on Wednesday, against 186,740 the day before, the health ministry said, while the number of deaths fell to 426 from 468.
Italy has registered 144,770 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 10.4 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with COVID-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 20,001 on Wednesday, down from 20,027 a day earlier.
There were 123 new admissions to intensive care units, down from 130 on Tuesday. The total number of intensive care patients fell to 1,665 from a previous 1,694.
Some 1.1 million tests for COVID-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 1.4 million, the health ministry said.
Britain
Britain reported 102,292 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday and 346 more deaths within 28 days of a positive test, official data showed.
That compared with 94,326 cases and 439 deaths reported on Tuesday.
Sweden
Sweden set a new daily record for COVID-19 cases, registering 44,944 cases on Jan. 25, health agency data showed on Wednesday as a fourth wave of the virus mounted across the country.
The daily infection figures are typically revised somewhat as any delayed records of additional cases are added to the national total for a given day. The previous record of 43,723 cases was set on Jan. 20.
Sweden's government announced new restrictions this month as the more contagious omicron variant has spread rapidly, putting strain on the country's healthcare system.
France
The French vaccine strategy council (COSV) told the French government giving people a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose would not bring significant advantages, French newspaper Le Monde reported on Wednesday.
"The data available at the moment does not urge for putting in place a second booster jab", the paper cited COSV as saying.
Austria
Austria's lockdown for people not fully vaccinated against the coronavirus will end on Monday because the pressure on hospitals has eased, the government said on Wednesday.
New daily coronavirus infections are rising, driven by the extremely contagious Omicron variant. They hit a new record above 30,000 on Wednesday, Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein told a news conference, adding that they would peak in the next two weeks at around 35,000 to 40,000.
The occupancy rate of hospital and intensive-care beds, however, has been falling.
"We came to the conclusion that the lockdown for unvaccinated people in Austria is only justifiable in the event of the threat of an imminent over-burdening of intensive-care capacity," Mueckstein told a news conference, adding experts no longer saw it as necessary.
Since Nov. 15 those not vaccinated against the coronavirus have been under lockdown, meaning they are only allowed to leave their homes for a limited number of reasons such as shopping for essentials or working. The measure, which was suspended over Christmas, has been criticised as very difficult to enforce.
While that restriction on their movement will be lifted, the unvaccinated will still be barred from taking part in a range of leisure activities including eating in restaurants or shopping for non-essential items as part of government efforts to increase the vaccination rate, which is among the lowest in western Europe.
Germany
German lawmakers agonised over whether to impose compulsory COVID-19 shots on Wednesday, as new record daily COVID-19 infections and the country's stuttering vaccination campaign forced them into an ethical and constitutional dilemma.
Protesters stood in small groups around the Reichstag parliament building, surrounded by police, as politicians within presented cross-party motions.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz backs compulsory vaccines for over-18s but his coalition government is divided on the issue and he has told lawmakers to vote according to conscience.
"Compulsory vaccination raises difficult and controversial legal and ethical questions," Bundestag President Baerbel Bas said, opening the debate in which more than 40 lawmakers were due to speak.
The three main proposals under consideration include requiring all adults to be vaccinated, or only those above 50, or merely requiring all those who have not had shots to receive counselling.
Around 75 percent of the German population have received at least one dose of a vaccine - less than in western European peers such as France, Italy or Spain, where the equivalent figures are 80 percent, 83 percent and 86 percent.
Details of a bill will be finalised after the debate and a draft law should be ready for a parliamentary vote by March.
Denmark
The BA.2 subvariant of the Omicron coronavirus, which has become the dominant one in Denmark, appears more contagious than the BA.1 subvariant, Danish Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said on Wednesday in a national address.
"There is no evidence that the BA.2 variant causes more disease, but it must be more contagious," Heunicke told a news conference.
Poland
Poland reported 53,420 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, according to health ministry data, joining Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania in hitting its highest infection rate of the pandemic, driven by the Omicron variant.
"We have to be ready for a further rise in cases, even above 60,000," a Health Ministry spokesperson told a news conference.
Deputy Health Minister Waldemar Kraska told the website interia.pl that the highly transmissible Omicron variant currently accounted for around 40% of cases.
In an attempt to combat the surge, Poland has stepped up testing, performing a record 173,000 official tests in 24 hours.
It has also said older primary and secondary schoolchildren must switch to remote learning from Thursday.
Poland has so far registered 104,373 deaths from COVID-19 among its population of 38 million.
Asia-Pacific
China
Beijing reported 14 local confirmed COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, the highest daily count in its current outbreak, less than two weeks before the Winter Olympics are set to start in the Chinese capital and the neighbouring province of Hebei.
Although the numbers for Beijing's outbreak since Jan. 15 are lower than elsewhere in the world, the city has ordered targeted lockdowns for tens of thousands of people and tested a few million residents to block infection.
The restrictions, in line with a national effort to curb virus flare-ups as soon as possible, take on extra urgency as China has vowed to safely host the Winter Games and prevent major outbreaks during the Lunar New Year travel season.
Tuesday's 14 cases with confirmed symptoms in Beijing account for more than half of the 24 infections nationwide, data from the National Health Commission (NHC) showed.
The capital has found a total of 55 local cases with symptoms since Jan. 15, the data shows. Beijing officials have blamed the Delta variant for most cases in the current outbreak, with a handful attributed to the highly transmissible Omicron.
In addition to Beijing, the provinces of Heilongjiang, Hebei, Liaoning, Henan and Guangdong as well as the northwestern region of Xinjiang all reported sporadic local cases with confirmed symptoms for Tuesday, NHC data showed.
The eastern city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang province found one person infected with Omicron, state television said on Wednesday. His travel history showed he had not left the city since Jan. 14.
In Horgos, a city in Xinjiang, two asymptomatic infected people were found to have caught the Omicron variant, state television said on Tuesday. The source of the virus was unclear as the two had not left the city in two weeks.
At least seven provinces, regions and municipalities in China have found locally transmitted Omicron infections, while the total number of cases is unknown.
With no new deaths on Tuesday, China's death toll in the pandemic stayed at 4,636.
Americas
United States
The United States has shipped 400 million COVID-19 vaccine doses as part of its earlier pledge to donate about 1.2 billion doses to low-income countries, the White House said on Wednesday.
"Today, we will hit a major milestone in our global effort: 400 million vaccine doses shipped to 112 countries ... for free, no strings attached," White House COVID-19 Coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters at a briefing.
The latest batch includes 3.2 million doses of the Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE vaccine to Bangladesh and 4.7 million doses to Pakistan, CNN reported earlier on Wednesday, citing a White House official.
The Biden administration had previously vowed to donate a second tranche of 500 million doses to the COVAX global vaccine sharing program, raising its total pledge to some 1.2 billion COVID vaccine doses, with the latest batch expected to start shipping this month.
Africa and Middle East
Turkey
Turkey recorded 77,434 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, just shy of the record 77,722 touched two weeks ago, according to government data.
Daily cases hovered around 20,000 a month ago, before the Omicron variant become dominant in the country.
Reuters
