Peru raises COVID-19 alert, tightens curbs amid Omicron wave

FILE PHOTO: A man is administered a vaccine for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at night during an outreach by healthcare workers who traveled by river into the Amazon rainforest to educate people from the indigenous Urarina community about the disease and offer medical care, in San Marcos, Peru October 11, 2021. Picture taken October 11, 2021. REUTERS/Sebastian Castaneda/File Photo

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru, which has one of the world's highest COVID-19 mortality rates per number of inhabitants, raised its pandemic alert level in various cities and tightened some restrictions due to a third wave of infections caused by the spread of the Omicron variant.

Health Minister Hernando Cevallos said that some 24 provinces, including Lima, went from "moderate" to "high" alert as the average number of daily cases has increased 25% from the previous week.