COVID-19 pandemic

He expressed hope that the critical phase of the COVID pandemic would end next year.
"It would be foolish to make a different prediction, I believe that the acute phase of the pandemic will end sometime in 2022," Gates said on the Gates Notes personal blog.

An Italian man who wanted a coronavirus vaccine certificate without actually having the jab tried to play the system by presenting health workers with a fake arm, an official said on Dec. 3.

Germany unveiled strict curbs on the unvaccinated on Dec. 2 as alarm fanned worldwide over the Omicron variant, and Joe Biden announced America's winter battle plans against COVID-19 as signs of community transmission of the new strain began showing in the U.S.

U.S. Chief Epidemiologist and Infectious Diseases Specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci reports to President Joe Biden that final information on the new version of the coronavirus Omicron will be available in two weeks, Reuters reported.

Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is racing to contain a new coronavirus variant potentially more dangerous than the one that has fueled relentless waves of infection on nearly every continent.

Turkey, the United States, Brazil, Canada, and Saudi Arabia became the latest countries on Nov. 26 to restrict travel from southern Africa, where a new Covid strain labelled a "variant of concern" has been discovered in a potentially heavy blow to the world's efforts to end the coronavirus pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the world as we know it, altering our habits from the way we travel to interaction between people.

Despite all the discomfort and problems it has brought along, one unlikely benefit of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be that restaurants are now wasting much less food. 

Despite high levels of vaccination in many European countries and the stimulation of the tourism industry during the summer months, tourism activity is not expected to return to pre-pandemic levels by 2024.

The Danish government has proposed the return of the digital health pass to be presented by Danes when visiting bars and restaurants indoors at a time when the country is entering the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported.

The incidence of coronavirus in Germany reached a record high for the pandemic - 201.1 per 100,000 population in the last week, AFP reported.

The previous peak of 197.6 per 100,000 was reached on 22 December 2020.

And while many in the country have been vaccinated against Covid-19, vaccination levels have stopped below 70 percent.