volunteers in england help give vaccines in the race to fight the surging omicron variant in the country. the government is offering every adult a booster by the end of the month. pope frances has delivered his traditional christmas day urbi et orbi message to the world. he deplored the immense tragedies in yemen and syria which he said were being passed over in silence millions around the world face travel disruption over christmas, as the surge in omicron variant cases sees thousands of flights cancelled due to staff shortages. airlines say they re contacting those passengers affected, before they arrive at the airport. now on bbc news, sporting world. hi there, my name is
houston for advanced care, still unaware her 3 week old daughter is 900 miles away in the intensive care unit. what will you tell her when you can speak to her? i don t want to think about it. that s my little girl being away from her little girl. my heart bleeds for her. reporter: the omicron variant not ripping through the lone star state. texas children s preparing for even more sick kids as covid-19 cases skyrocket. what is your sense for what the next few weeks are going to hold? i think that the bar for resilience just keeps moving. you think that i don t know how we could do this again and then we keep doing it again. reporter: as texas children s readies for a fourth coronavirus wave. already its e.r. is seeing a
seeing with this surge of omicron, and what we re seeing in the numbers with kids specifically, do you think it should change the way people think about this variant and about life with this virus at this point? yeah, i really do. i mean, i think that what we have sort of gotten used to thinking this is a virus that predominantly affects the elderly, predominantly affects those with underlying conditions and that s true. what has changed and people realize this over the last couple of weeks, omicron is the dominant strain in this country and it s really contagious. things you may have gotten away with in the past, you re not likely to get away with now because it s that contagious. and even though children are less likely to develop severe illness, as you heard at the end of miguel s piece if you re just talking about a much larger percentage of people overall who are getting infected, then even with the lower hospitalization rate, it s still going to be significant. so we re seeing
(excited yell) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one gram of sugar, and nutrients to support immune health. now to the growing crisis facing hospitals due to the surging omicron variant. hospitalizations from covid have surpassed 100,000 and also
that s the safest thing to do. in the city of detroit, where the infection rate is over seven days is exceeding 40% range, and we are aggressively testing and providing free testing for all of our staff. we see those numbers over the holiday has continued to impact our community. a number of people have had the omicron virus. i just recovered myself, right before and during christmas. so we know that it s highly contagious and we just want to flatten the curve and i think that is certainly the best way to go, to keep everyone safe. is the concern in detroit schools that the high positivity rate with the high positivity rate is it s the risk in school or is the concern that you won t have enough teachers or staff to lead classes? so i think there s a combination of issues. i am so proud of all of our dft