France has recorded 104,111 new COVID-19 cases, the highest so far since the pandemic began and due to the contagious Omicron variant.
In a Reuters report, French health authorities said the number of COVID patients in intensive care went up by 28 to 3,282.
France predicted that Omicron will be the dominant variant in the country by January 2022.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has sounded the alarm over the rapid increase in cases due to the highly transmissible Omicron COVID-19 variant.
WHO said that the new variant is spreading faster compared to the Delta variant that drove surges of infection in many parts of the world.
It added that it’s not wise to undermine the effects of Omicron and dismiss it as milder compared to Delta.
“With the numbers going up, all health systems are going to be under strain,” WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said in a briefing.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the briefing: “There is now consistent evidence that Omicron is spreading significantly faster than the Delta variant.”
“And it is more likely people vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19 could be infected or re-infected,” he added.
