As New Zealand hopes it's past the peak of the Omicron outbreak, other parts of the world are battling new waves of it.
China is in its worst outbreak since the pandemic began and the World Health Organisation is warning the pandemic is far from over.
The shell of a makeshift hospital rises above the snow-covered ground in China.
It's just one of many under construction as the country boosts its hospital stock to cope with rising case numbers.
"Some localities thought that the Omicron only causes mild symptoms like flu, so with the mentality of 'let's take a recess', they let down their guard and relaxed their requirements on normalizing the epidemic control," deputy director of the National Health Commission Wang Hesheng says.
Millions are in lockdown in cities across China to curb infection rates under its "zero COVID" strategy.
The chilly conditions have not deterred people from lining up for a test as rounds of mass testing ramp up.
One factor that's contributed to the rise of cases is the Omicron BA.2 variant.
"Higher transmissibility and concealment have made the infection more difficult to detect at an early time. As a result, when the epidemic is found, it has already been spread to a certain extent," Hesheng says.
A variant that's already prevalent in New Zealand and is now gaining ground in the United States.
"We have a good sense of COVID, at least the variants that we've seen. We know what we can do. We've got not just vaccines, but treatments that we know are effective," US Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra says.
The variant is thought to be behind record highs in Scotland. One in 14 people had COVID in the past week.
In the UK, more than 3 million people are thought to have had the virus last week.
It has caused hospitalisations to rise, but the death rate remains low.
"The pandemic is far from over," WHO spokeswoman Dr Margaret Harris says.
A warning as the COVID-ridden world tries to gain back some normality.
"We have seen actually an increase in cases this week, and sadly, we are still seeing between 60,000 to 70,000 deaths (per week). So, we are definitely in the middle of the pandemic," Dr Harris says.
The pandemic has hit Samoa, causing a nationwide lockdown. A further 34 community cases have been found, taking the total to 45.
A number that may be small compared to cases in China, but has one thing in common - cases are on the rise.
