Reported coronavirus cases are easing in the UK and Denmark while infections continue to cause concern in Hungary, Bosnia, Norway and the Palestinian Territories.
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Additional hospitals set up in the UK to help deal with the strain on health services during the coronavirus pandemic are to close from April, the health secretary announced on Tuesday.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the Nightingale Hospitals, which were set up across the country last spring, are to shut down in the coming weeks as the number of COVID-19 patients has declined.
Hancock said there were fewer than 10,000 COVID-19 patients in hospitals across the UK, down from a peak of 40,000.
"We're now in a position to stand down our Nightingale Hospitals," Hancock said, adding his thanks to the staff who worked in the hospitals and helped to build them.
Ten hospitals were built, providing more than 12,000 beds to patients in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland over the past year.
The branches in London and Sunderland are to remain open as vaccination centres, according to a spokeswoman for the NHS.
The UK's coronavirus cases have fallen consistently since January, with 4712 new daily cases reported on Monday.
In December, the UK hit a peak of 81,551 cases reported in one day - the highest amount since the government began rolling out coronavirus tests in March 2020.
A total of 22.3 million people have received their first coronavirus jab so far.
In Denmark, the health minister said on Tuesday it was possible to ease restrictions further since the coronavirus epidemic in the country is not worsening.
"The contact number is calculated at 1.0. That means that the epidemic in Denmark is not growing. Thus, we have the basis for further controlled reopening," Magnus Heunicke said on Twitter.
The contact number, also known as the R-value, indicates how many people one infected person will pass the virus on to.
But Hungary set records on Tuesday for the number of COVID-19 patients being treated in local hospitals amid a powerful surge in cases.
Nearly 350 people in Hungary were hospitalised with the virus in the last 24 hours, bringing the number of hospitalisations on Tuesday to 8270, breaking the previous record of 8045 set on December 8.
The number of patients on ventilators also set a new record with 833.
Health care experts say it could soon reach the threshold of 1000, the maximum number of critical patients the country's health system can handle.
A new round of lockdown measures went into effect in Hungary on Monday requiring most shops to close for two weeks.
Meanwhile, Bosnia reported a huge rise in daily new infections with the coronavirus amid warnings that hospitals in the Balkan country are rapidly filling up.
Authorities on Tuesday reported 1251 new infections in the past 24 hours compared to 400 new cases reported on Monday and similar numbers over the weekend.
The surge has prompted authorities in the capital Sarajevo to announce the closure of all bars, restaurants and non-essential shops for the upcoming weekend.
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg threatened to impose new country-wide coronavirus restrictions, including closing amusement parks and gyms and banning the sale of alcohol, if an increase in new cases is not brought down.
"We still have a steep hill ahead of us," Solberg said, calling "for one last effort. That we together go up this hill and hope that that this time we finally manage to reach the top."
In an address to parliament, she urged citizens to stay home for the Easter break in early April.
She vowed Norway, which has had 74,940 cases and 632 coronavirus deaths, "will crack down on local outbreaks even faster".
The Palestinian Authority said on Tuesday that hospitals in the West Bank are completely full due to a recent spike in new coronavirus infections.
Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said during a cabinet meeting that hospitals were at 100-per-cent capacity and intensive care units were completely overburdened.
Shtayyeh announced that further coronavirus wards would be set up.
The number of new infections has been rising in the territory with 1693 new cases reported on Tuesday, officials said.
Australian Associated Press