A Covid “tsunami” threatens to overwhelm healthcare systems, the WHO said today, as record surges fuelled by the Omicron variant dampened New Year celebrations around the world once again.

“I am highly concerned that Omicron, being more transmissible, circulating at the same time as Delta, is leading to a tsunami of cases,” AFP quotes WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as saying.

“This is and will continue to put immense pressure on exhausted health workers, and health systems on the brink of collapse.”

The variant has already started to overwhelm some hospitals in the United States, the hardest-hit nation where the seven-day average of new cases hit 265,427, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.