Germany reported its highest number of daily deaths from the pandemic, with 1,188 deaths recorded in the past 24 hours. The previous record was 1,129 on December 30.
The country, which has been praised for dealing with the first wave of the pandemic, is currently under a strict national blockade, which has been extended until January 31.
In the UK, meanwhile, the Mayor of London declared a “major incident” on Friday, warning that hospitals in the capital were close to being invaded.
“The situation in London is now critical, with the spread of the virus out of control,” Mayor Sadiq Khan said in a statement.
“The number of cases in London has increased rapidly, with more than a third more patients being treated in our hospitals, compared to the peak of the pandemic last April.
“We are declaring a major incident because the threat this virus poses to our city is in crisis,” added Khan. “If we don’t take immediate action now, our [National Health Service] it can be overwhelmed and more people will die. “
The statement from the mayor’s office said there were currently 7,034 people in London hospitals with Covid-19, an increase of 35% compared to the pandemic peak in April.
UK Health Minister Matt Hancock said on Thursday that the government is putting “extra resources” in London and other parts of England where the NHS is under “most significant pressure”.
Fatalities are growing at record levels in Britain as health officials face a deadly start to 2021. The country recorded 1,162 deaths on Thursday, the second highest since the start of the pandemic.
British health officials are also struggling to cope with the new strain of the virus that was first detected in the country as it spreads to the public.
This strain appears to spread more easily than others, but there is no evidence that it is more deadly or causes more serious illness.
The coronavirus crisis is also deepening in Ireland, where health officials said they were deeply concerned about a sharp increase in cases, with 6,521 infections reported only on Thursday.
Holohan said the new UK variant contributed to the increase.
Ireland tightened its blocking measures further on Wednesday, shutting down construction sites and schools across the country. An exception was made for senior students due to taking exams at school.
“We are in a battle against a deadly and ever-changing virus,” Irish leader Micheál Martin said on Wednesday on Twitter. “The blockade that we are introducing today was designed to reflect this naked reality.”
WHO calls for stricter measures
As governments struggle to vaccinate people and deal with the peak of winter, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for more intense measures to deal with the UK strain.
“With the increase in transmissibility and similar severity of the disease, the variant … raises the alarm: without greater control to slow its spread, there will be a greater impact on health facilities already stressed and pressurized,” said the director of WHO Europe, Hans Kluge, on Thursday.
“This is an alarming situation, which means that, for a short period of time, we need to do more than we have done and step up public health and social measures to make sure that we can flatten the steep vertical line in some countries” said Kluge. added.
Kluge also called on countries “to mitigate this burden by doing everything they can to reduce transmission and increase surveillance to identify new variants”.
The United Kingdom variant has already been detected in 22 countries in the WHO European region.
Sugam Pokharel from CNN and Arnaud Siad contributed to this article.