Despite vaccination rates that make other governments envious, Spain faces the stark truth that with the new omicron variant rampant, these winter holidays will not be a time of unbridled joy.

The country had hoped to build on the willingness of 80% of its entire population of 47 million (90% of those over the age of 12) to queue for vaccines with little or no money. prompting and widespread use of face masks to have a Christmas that looked a lot more like 2019 than last year.

But the incredibly rapid spread of the omicron variant that reached Spain less than a month ago is starting to put pressure on hospitals, even though experts agree that being vaccinated reduces further. considerably the risk of becoming seriously ill.

Catalonia, home to the northeastern city of Barcelona, ​​is poised to become the first Spanish region to reestablish serious limitations and put a damper on holiday joy. One in four people hospitalized in Spain with COVID-19 is in Catalonia.

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Japan will maintain its recently reimposed strict border controls, which prohibit most foreign entry, until more information is known about the omicron variant of the coronavirus, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Tuesday.

Kishida said he would also require 14-day quarantines at government-designated facilities for those who come in close contact with omicron patients, instead of the current stay-at-home policy.

Kishida did not specify a timeline for border controls, among the world’s strictest, which had been briefly relaxed but were later reinstated amid the global upsurge of the omicron variant.

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