Page 27 - Case Counts News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Mentioned, greece, for example, closing restaurants and bars at midnight. also restrictions on the number of people that can be around a table, and how many people have to be around a table as opposed to standing. in austria, perhaps one of the most severe places in terms of regulations around europe, closing bars and restaurants two hours before midnight, paula. >> yeah. obviously, we thought these restrictions would be a thing of the past. they are not. jim bittermann there covering all of it for us. appreciate it. simon clark is an associate professor in cellular microbiology university o...

>> reporter: well, yasmin, the ball is up in times square, but officials here are hoping to keep the crowd count down tonight. they're only going to be allowing around 15,000 people into the viewing area to watch that ball drop, and this is an area that would normally hold four times that. so that is one of the measures that has been put in place to help keep people safe. also when those viewers show up, they're going to be required to show their id and proof of vaccination and they're also going to have to wear those masks all night long as they ring in the new year. of course, these festivit...

Picture actually looks like. and that's because according to chicago public schools data, between december 26 and january 1st, of the more than 35,000 covid-19 tests that were returned, more than 24,000 of those were declared invalid. these past two weeks, chicago has seen its highest daily case rate of covid-19 since the pandemic began. christine, laura? >> all right, omar, thank you so much for that. omicron case counts are breaking records, but health experts say hospitalizations are the important number, the most important number to watch here with omicron. thankfully, many reported case...

Surprise, given the rampant increase in this variant. all of this comes on top of a surge largely due to the delta variant that has seen cases rise across the country. here in new york, we have had four-consecutive days of record-case numbers, statewide. it is causing confusion and, frankly, exhaustion, especially among overworked frontline workers, one of whom you will hear from in just a moment. i am john berman in for anderson. and now, let's be clear. as negative as these headlines might sound, this is not like the darkest days of the pandemic. not at all. for one, hospitalizations do not ...

It has been exemplary, you know, and i think that is the lesson to the world who are a few weeks behind south africa in this course with 0micron. you can get there, but you have to do what it takes and, unfortunately, we're not seeing that everywhere. do you think it might be slightly too soon to start easing restrictions as south africa is doing with curfews? 0h, absolutely not, not here in the us. we are seeing sky—high numbers. we have broken records for case positivity rates in case counts in st louis. 0ur hospitals are at capacity. we don't have healthcare workers available to fully sta...