good morning to those of you in the united states and around the world. brianna and john are off today. good morning, john. two days to 2022. two days left. this morning we have big headlines with the u.s. shattering its record of daily new coronavirus cases as the highly contagious omicron variant spreads rapidly. daily new cases hitting a record seven-day average of 300,000 cases this week. the last time we hit a peak close to that was january. dr. fauci is strongly discouraging going to large parties. don t be hugging, kissing, any of that celebrating that normally comes with new year s. if your plans are to go to a 40 to 50-person new year s eve party with all the bells and whistles and everybody hugging and kissing and wishing each other a happy new year, i would strongly recommend that this year we do not do that. not the year for hugging and kissing at midnight. all right. there s also been growing pushback from frontline workers to the new cdc guidelines, cu
tensions over ukraine, no doubt, on top of that agenda. and mourners pay their respects to antiapartheid hero archbishop desmond tutu. we ll go live to africa. announcer: live from london, this is cnn newsroom with max foster. it s thursday, december 30th, with just two days left in 2021. we are now seeing the coronavirus pandemic explode right around the globe. according to johns hopkins university, the world is averaging an all-time high of more than a million new infections a day. experts warn things will only get worse. this virus will continue to evolve and threaten our health system if we don t improve the collective response. concerned omicron will be more transmissible, circulating at the same time as delta is leading to a tsunami of cases. infections are also rising quickly in the u.s.. the country is averaging more than 300,000 new cases a day in the past week, and that s another record. johns hopkins reports close to 490,000 cases on wednesday. and more
year s eve celebrations. the annual times square celebration in new york city is for now a go. the fda has authorized two new at-home tests, but for now the demand for testing is drastically outpacing supply. many hospitals are maxed out with large portions of staff out sick themselves. states like georgia and ohio are the latest to activate the national guard for help. some experts say this is the new reality for the foreseeable future. everything we re going to do right now will be imperfect. just accept that right now. we don t know a lot of the things we wish we knew, but what we do know and is emerging is this country will be in the soup in the next few weeks. with so many cases in so many locations, we ll see critical infrastructure as well as health care challenged. one of those big challenges is a rise in pediatric cases. more than 300 children being admitted to the hospital nation wild for covid every day in the last two weeks, just 2% below the peak in september
and you can see the electricity cables have come down from this pylon. and that s affecting things here gravely. and scientists in china reveal a perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo from at least 66 million years ago. live from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news. it s newsday. it s 8am in the morning in singapore and midnight in london, where preliminary results from three scientific studies suggest that the 0micron variant may be milder than first feared, with patients running less risk of needing hospital treatment. the news comes as the uk recorded more than 100,000 new cases of coronavirus. 0ur medical editor fergus walsh reports. another record day for covid cases and for boosterjabs, but as the 0micron wave surges, at last some positive early evidence from three separate studies, all indicating it poses less of a threat than the delta variant. research by imperial college london found around a 40% reduction in the risk of being admitted to hospitalfor a night or
you can see up there on the roof, has been torn off like a can of sardines. 90% of buildings here have been damaged. and scientists in china reveal a perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo from at least 66 million years ago. live from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news it s newsday. preliminary results from three scientific studies suggest that the 0micron variant may be milder than first feared, with patients running less risk of needing hospital treatment. the news comes as the uk recorded more than 100,000 new cases of coronavirus. 0ur medical editor fergus walsh reports. another record day for covid cases and for boosterjabs, but as the 0micron wave surges, at last some positive early evidence from three separate studies, all indicating it poses less of a threat than the delta variant. research by imperial college london found around a 40% reduction in the risk of being admitted to hospitalfor a night or more compared to delta. a scottish study suggested there was a