South Africa

 South Africa, which has detected the new Omicron variant and is experiencing an exponential rise in new infections, exceeded three million cases of Covid-19 on Friday, according to official figures. More than 16,000 new cases have been recorded in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number to 3,004,203, according to the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD). The total number of deaths is 89,944, including 25 in the last 24 hours. "This increase represents a 24.3% positive rate," said the NICD in its daily update, noting also an increase in hospital admissions with 279 new admissions.

Russia

 The emergence of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is the "ultimate proof" of the danger of inequalities in the face of vaccination in the world, said Friday the president of the Red Cross. "Scientists have repeatedly warned the international community of the risks of very new variants in places where the vaccination rate is very low," Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told AFP in an interview in Moscow. According to UN statistics, about 65% of people in the most developed countries have received at least one dose of a vaccine against Covid-19, compared to only 7% in the least developed countries. Russia recorded 74,893 Covid-19-related deaths in October, the deadliest month for the country since the pandemic began, the statistics agency Rosstat announced Friday. The total death toll from the pandemic in Russia stood at more than 520,000 at the end of October, according to Rosstat, which has a broader definition of deaths from the virus than the government count.