TOP HEADLINES 

· Greece has banned public Christmas and New Year's Eve festivities and imposed mandatory mask-wearing in public open spaces on Thursday, in order to fight the spread of new infections. The measures announced will come into force starting from Friday morning.

· The number of daily new cases in the UK exceeded 100,000 for the first time yesterday since the beginning of the pandemic.

· Omicron is set to become the dominant variant in Italy, said the National Health Institute. Italy's health body on Thursday released preliminary data from a flash-survey showing the new variant accounted for 28 percent of cases on Monday. The percentage was only at 0.19 percent of all cases in the country on December 6.

· A study from the UK suggests the Omicron variant is 40 percent less likely to cause hospital admissions in patients, compared with the Delta variant. The chance of having to attend a hospital as a day-patient when sick with Omicron was 20 to 25 percent less likely than for patients who had been infected with the Delta variant.

· A third dose of AstraZeneca's jab can "significantly" lift antibody levels against Omicron, said the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant on Thursday. The company also said other findings show its preventative monoclonal antibody treatment, Evusheld, was one of only two authorized treatments that had the ability to neutralize the new variant. 

· Data from South Africa suggest Omicron could be 70 to 80 percent less severe than Delta. But the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control, John Nkengasong, warned the results were not guaranteed to be mirrored in all countries.

"We should interpret the data from South Africa with a lot of caution," he told an online media briefing. "This is early days and public health practice is local."

· Bulgaria is offering a cash reward to its elderly citizens to encourage them to get vaccinated, announced Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov on Thursday. Bulgaria's vaccination rate is the lowest in the European Union.

Under the new deal, every retired Bulgarian who gets a jab will get a one-off payment of 75 levs ($43.40), with the offer being extended for those who need a booster shot as well.

· Beijing Winter Olympics organizers are urging athletes to get booster jabs, as Chinese officials said they expect outbreaks within the Winter Olympics bubble. Beijing's plan is to send symptomatic athletes to designated hospitals in the capital as soon as they test positive.

· Russia's President Vladimir Putin said he hopes his country will be able to reach herd immunity by mid-2022 thanks to the country's vaccination efforts, in his annual end-of-year address to the nation.

FROM OUR GLOBAL COLLEAGUES

CGTN EUROPE: 'Christmas to be handled with care,' but not canceled, says infectious diseases expert

CGTN ASIA: Xi'an tightens restrictions amid resurgence of COVID-19 cases

CGTN AMERICA: Experts warn of 'viral blizzard' in U.S. as Omicron hits over 40 states

CGTN AFRICA: Uganda's COVID-19 infections top 130,000 mark