France to make wearing masks mandatory in public transportation

On October 26, 2022, the French health minister Francois Braun leaves the Elysee Palace in Paris, France. SARAH MEYSSONNIER REUTERS PARIS LOS ANGELES The decision to make wearing face masks mandatory in public transportation to contain a new surge in the COVID 19 epidemic will depend on the evolution of the situation, French health minister Francois Braun said on Monday.

"I invite people to put on masks in public transportation even if it's not mandatory," he told reporters while visiting a French hospital.

The decision to make it mandatory will depend on the evolution of the pandemic, Braun said. As of Friday, the seven-day moving average of daily new COVID infections was 54,824, a more than six-week high in France, compared to less than 25,000 in early November.

It is still well below the level of 100,000 seen over March-April and July, and a record of over 366,000 in January.

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The number of people in intensive care units for COVID 19 has reached a new peak since August 8, at 1,113 and the total hospitalizations for the disease are close to 20,000 for the first time since October.

The data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC shows that there was a 17.6 percent increase in the daily COVID 19 hospitalizations in the United States as a result of the winter surge, and the country averages 4,200 daily COVID 19 hospitalizations in the week ending Nov 29th, a 17.6 percent increase from a week before, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC.

More than 35,000 patients were treated for COVID last week, with more than 35,000 patients being treated, according to Washington Post data tracking.

Senior citizens in California, the most populous state in the United States, are being hit hard as COVID - 19 surges this winter, according to local media on Monday.

The Los Angeles Times, the biggest newspaper on the US West Coast, reported a troubling rise in coronaviruses-positive hospital admissions among seniors in the western US state, which has increased to levels not seen since the summer Omicron surge.

READ MORE: People-first should be the guide for any adjustment of COVID policy.

Since the autumn low, hospitalizations have tripled for Californians of most age groups, but the jump in seniors in need of hospital care has been particularly dramatic, according to the newspaper.

Since it was available in Sept, only 35 percent of California's seniors aged 65 and up have received the updated booster. Among eligible 50 to 64 year-olds, about 21 percent have received the updated booster, according to the report.

Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization of their Omicron-adapted COVID 19 vaccine booster for children aged 6 months through 4 years.

If authorized, the children would receive the primary series consisting of two doses of the original Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine and one shot of the Omicron-adapted bivalent vaccine, the company said.

ALSO READ: WHO: Drop in COVID alertness could create a deadly new variant.