Surging COVID cases, 'jingle jabs' make for somber Christmas

ROME (AP) — Christians around the world celebrated their second COVID-19 Christmas on Saturday with surging infections in many countries overwhelming hospitals, canceling flights and curbing religious observances, even as coronavirus vaccines were more available than ever.

While some countries in Asia imposed restrictions to try to contain the highly contagious omicron variant, governments in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere preached common sense despite reporting record daily cases this week, advising their citizens to use masks and voluntarily limit the size of holiday gatherings.

The head of intensive care at a hospital in Marseille, France, said most of the COVID-19 patients there over Christmas were unvaccinated, while his staff members are exhausted or can't work because they are infected.

“We’re sick of this,” said Dr. Julien Carvelli, the ICU chief at Marseille's La Timone Hospital, as his team spent another Christmas Eve tending to COVID-19 patients on breathing machines. “We’re afraid we won’t have enough space.”

Thousands of people across England got a vaccine booster shot for Christmas as new cases in Britain hit another daily record of 122,186. The Good Health Pharmacy in north London was one of dozens of vaccination sites that kept their doors open Saturday to administer “jingle jabs” amid a government push to offer booster shots to all adults by the end of the year.

In the United States, many churches canceled planned in-person Christmas services, and for those that did have in-person worship, clergy reported smaller but significant attendance.

At the Dormition of the Virgin Mary Church in the Hamptons in Southampton, New York, attendance at the Christmas Eve Liturgy “was a third less than last year, the reality of the omicron virus diminishing the...