Over 5,000 flights scrapped worldwide on Christmas weekend – latest updates

Saturday, December 25, 2021

Flight cancellations drag on as airlines short-staffed

At least 5,700 flights have been cancelled worldwide over the long Christmas weekend and thousands more were delayed, a tracking website reported. 

According to Flightaware.com, more than 2,500 flights were scrubbed around the globe on Christmas Day, including more than 870 originating from or headed to US airports, with some 4,200 delays as of 1430 GMT.

On Friday, there were around 2,400 cancellations and 11,000 delays, while Sunday cancellations have already topped 800.

Portugal says Omicron dominant, infections rising

Omicron has become the dominant strain in Portugal where more than 10,000 daily cases had been registered Saturday, the national health agency said.

Portugal, one of the countries with the highest vaccination rates worldwide, has begun inoculating children over five years old.

Portugal recorded 10 deaths and 10,016 cases, slightly fewer than Friday when 11 deaths and 12,943 cases were reported.

Three members of K-pop group BTS test positive

Three members of the K-pop superstar group BTS have been infected with the Covid-19 after returning from abroad, their management agency said.

RM and Jin were diagnosed on Saturday evening, the Big Hit Music agency said in a statement. It earlier said another member, Suga, tested positive for the virus on Friday.

All three took their second jabs in August, the agency said.

India to give booster shots to healthcare workers

India will start administering booster shots to healthcare and frontline workers from January 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.

In an address to the nation, he also said those aged 15-18 would start receiving their vaccinations from January 3.

Kenya to start giving booster shots

Kenya will offer booster shots to individuals six months after their initial shots, the health ministry has said a day after the country logged its highest rate of positive tests.

Kenya last month said it would demand proof of vaccination to access public spaces and transport from December 21.

The move met with a combination of bemusement, dismissal and occasional spot enforcement, given the country's low vaccination rate

Thailand reports first Omicron variant cluster

Thailand has reported its first domestic omicron variant cluster in Kalasin province.

“From the Kalasin cluster, there are 21 new infections,” said coronavirus task force spokesperson Apisamai Srirangsan.

Srirangsan said the infections originated from a couple who traveled from Belgium through the country’s Test & Go scheme that exempts vaccinated arrivals from certain countries.

India sees 387 additional fatalities

India has reported 7,189 new Covid-19 cases with 387 additional deaths in the last 24 hours, according to official data.

Mexico’s total death toll hits 298,670

Mexico has recorded 162 more coronavirus deaths and 3,520 new confirmed cases, according to health ministry data, bringing the overall death toll to 298,670 and the number of cases to 3,947,284.

China's Xian city reports rise in infections

Xian in northwest China has reported an increase in daily Covid-19 infections and local companies curtailed activity as the country's latest Covid hot spot entered its third day of lockdown.

The city of 13 million detected 75 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms, its highest daily count of the year and reversing the previous day's decline, official data showed on Saturday.

In the southern city of Shenzhen, five passengers who arrived Wednesday on a flight from Los Angeles tested positive for coronavirus and three were confirmed to be Omicron infections in December.

Russia reports 981 more deaths

Russia has reported 981 additional deaths from Covid-19, which is the lowest daily fatality increase since October 12, the federal anti-coronavirus crisis centre has said.

On Friday, 998 deaths were reported. The relative lethality is 2.92 percent according to the statistics.

In the past 24 hours, 24,946 new Covid infection cases were registered in Russia, bringing the total case count to 10,368,299.

Daily cases in Australian state top 6,000

Australia's most populous state recorded more than 6,000 new Covid-19 cases for the first time, adding a somber note to Christmas celebrations.

New South Wales reported 6,288 new infections over the past 24 hours, an increase of 676 cases from the previous day and by far the highest number of cases in any Australian state since the pandemic began.

The number of Covid-19 patients in the state rose by six to 388 and 52 people were in intensive care.

No deaths were reported and the number of people who have received at least one vaccine dose reached 95 percent.

Turkovac to be available for all

Turkiye to provide its domestically developed coronavirus vaccine, Turkovac, to all of humanity.

“Turkiye has become one of the nine countries that can produce a Covid-19 vaccine. We tested both the efficacy and safety of our vaccine and after making sure, we made it available to humanity,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Underlining that the Turkish vaccine has proven its protective effect in studies that have been carried out, Erdogan said Turkovac will be made available first to Turkish citizens and then Turkiye will share it with countries that have difficulties obtaining them.

No Omicron, no restriction on Christmas in N Zealand

New Zealanders celebrated Christmas in the warmth of mid-summer with few restrictions, in one of the few countries in the world largely untouched by the omicron variant of Covid-19.

Ninety-five percent of adults in New Zealand have had at least one dose of the vaccine, making it one of the world's most vaccinated populations. The only omicron cases that have been found in New Zealand have been safely contained at the border.

Border controls kept the worst of the virus at bay and by Christmas this year, New Zealand had recorded 50 deaths in a population of 5.5 million.

US Navy ship sidelines to Guantanamo Bay over Covid

A US Navy warship has paused its deployment to South America because of a coronavirus outbreak, the Navy said.

The USS Milwaukee, a littoral combat ship, is staying in port at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, where it had stopped for a scheduled port visit.

The Navy said in a statement that over 100 people in the ship's crew are “100 percent immunised” and that all of those who tested positive for Covid-19 have been isolated on the ship away from other crew members. The number of crew testing positive was not disclosed.

Brazil reports 164 deaths, 4,164 cases

Brazil registered 164 Covid-19 deaths and 4,164 additional cases, according to data released by the nation's Health Ministry.

The South American country is second in the world only to the United States in terms of total coronavirus deaths, but new deaths and cases have cratered in recent months.

Brazil has now registered a total of 618,392 Covid-19 deaths and over 22,2 million confirmed cases.

China registers 140 Covid cases, 0 deaths

China reported 140 new confirmed coronavirus cases for Dec. 24, up from 87 a day earlier, its health authority said.

Of the new infections, 87 were locally transmitted, according to a statement by the National Health Commission, compared with 55 a day earlier. Most of the new local cases were in the northwestern province of Shaanxi.

China reported 24 new asymptomatic cases, which it classifies separately from confirmed cases, down from 26 a day earlier.

There were no new deaths, leaving the death toll at 4 ,636. Mainland China had 100,871 confirmed cases as of Dec. 24. 

US OKs Roche's 20-min Covid tests

Roche says the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to its Covid-19 at-home rapid test that can be used by people as young as 14.

The pharmaceutical company says users can have results within 20 minutes for all variants of concern, including Omicron.

Roche noted that the product will be in the US market beginning in January.