Hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines, Asia’s largest Roman Catholic majority country, celebrated Christmas on Saturday without a roof, adequate supplies of food and water, electricity or cell phone signal, after a powerful typhoon left at least 375 killed last week and devastated island provinces in the center of the archipelago.
New Zealanders, for their part, celebrated Christmas with the warm summer weather and few restrictions, in one of the few countries in the world that has hardly been affected by the omicron variant.
Australia came to the holidays amid its worst COVID-19 outbreak since the start of the pandemic. The states of the country have recovered the norms on masks and other preventive measures.
And to compound the complications for travelers, airlines around the world canceled hundreds of flights as the new variant thwarted plans and led to staff losses.
More than 3,900 flights were canceled on Friday and Saturday, according to FlightAware, nearly half on Chinese airlines. Around 30% of the flights affected – more than 1,100 had origin, destination or both in the United States. Even so, this accounted for a small part of the flights worldwide. FlightAware said it had recorded more than 100,000 arrivals in 24 hours.
The storm that struck the Philippines on December 16 damaged or destroyed more than 371,000 houses. Before that, millions of people had returned to shopping malls, public parks and churches in recent weeks after an alarming spike in COVID-19 infections in September. Increased vaccinations and lighter quarantine measures had limited omicron cases in the country to just three so far.
Arthur Yap, governor of the affected Bohol province, where the typhoon left more than 100 dead and some 150,000 homes damaged or destroyed, on Saturday called on foreign humanitarian agencies to help provide temporary shelters and water filtration systems to reinforce the Philippine government assistance.
“I refuse to believe that there is no Christmas spirit among our people today. They are practicing Catholics. But it is obviously very off. There is overwhelming fear, there are no gifts, there were no Christmas Eve dinners, today there is none of that, ”Yap told The Associated Press by phone.
Yap said he was glad that many Filipinos could celebrate the holidays with more security due to the decrease in COVID-19 infections, although he asked that “please do not forget us.”
In Manila, which was not hit by the typhoon, Catholics returned to churches with relief on Saturday, although only partial capacity was allowed and parishioners had to wear masks and maintain social distancing.
Elsewhere in Asia and Oceania, Christmas celebrations were held between varying levels of restrictions against the virus.
South Korea upheld the strictest social distancing rules. Churches could accommodate 70% of the parishioners who could be seated and attendees had to have completed their vaccinations.
The country has seen a boom in COVID-19 infections and deaths since it drastically relaxed its preventive measures in early November, in efforts to return to normalcy. South Korean authorities were forced to later restore their stricter recommendations, such as a four-person limit on social gatherings and a 9 p.m. curfew for restaurants and coffee shops.
Christmas festivities were low-key in much of India, with more decorations than crowds due to fears that the omicron variant will hit the country in the coming weeks with a new wave of infections.
Authorities reintroduced night curfews and limits on gatherings of more than five people in large cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai. Attendance at Rooster Masses in Mumbai and other cities was lower than in other years. Christians make up just 2% of the nearly 1.4 billion people in India.
In New Zealand, where 95% of adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine, making it one of the most vaccinated populations in the world, the only omicron cases detected in New Zealand were contained at the border.
As COVID-19 spread across the world for the past two years, New Zealand took advantage of its isolation. Border controls kept the worst of the virus at bay and by Christmas this year, New Zealand had recorded 50 deaths out of a population of 5.5 million people.
But that success has come at a price. At these parties there were empty chairs at some tables, as some New Zealanders living and working abroad were unable to arrive in time due to limits on the isolation and quarantine program.
In Australia, the omicron variant was already dominant in several states, and for example it is believed to account for 70% of new infections in Queensland.
In his Christmas message, Prime Minister Scott Morrison referred to the cost of the disease on society.
“The omicron variant is nothing more than a new challenge that we have faced. But together, always together and only together, we move on, “said Morrison.
The high temperatures might have put some off celebrating their Christmas meals outside. Perth, Western Australia, was expected to hit 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday, the warmest Christmas since records began more than a century ago.
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Jim Gomez, Aaron Favila and Joeal Calupitan in Manila, Philippines; Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, Ashok Sharma in New Delhi, and Steve McMorran in Sydney contributed to this report.
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