Australian border agents held tennis superstar Novak Djokovic for eight hours at Melbourne airport, mostly incommunicado, before canceling his visa and sending him to a detention center, his lawyers said Saturday.

Djokovic secured a Covid-19 vaccine exemption from Tennis Australia and the Australian government because he had tested positive for the virus in December, which should have qualified him for entry, the lawyers argued.

Troops have been deployed to London hospitals. Health care workers infected with COVID-19 are treating patients in France. The Netherlands is under a lockdown, and tented field hospitals have gone up in Sicily.

Nations across Europe are scrambling to prop up health systems strained by staff shortages blamed on the new, highly transmissible omicron variant of the coronavirus, which is sending a wave of infections crashing over the continent.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday maintained on Friday his rude remarks about the country's minority of vaccine refusers, saying he cannot accept them infringing on others' freedom.

The 44-year-old outspoken president, who is expected to seek re-election later this year, made headlines earlier this week by using the word "emmerder" — rooted in the French word for "crap" and meaning to rile or to bug. He was talking about his strategy for pressuring vaccine refusers to get coronavirus jabs. His vulgar language dominated news broadcasts and provoked angry reactions from his political rivals.

China's lockdowns of big cities to fight coronavirus outbreaks are prompting concern about more disruptions to global industries after two makers of processor chips said their factories were affected.

That has added to unease about the omicron variant's global economic impact. Analysts warn Vietnam, Thailand and other countries important to manufacturing chains might impose anti-disease measures that would delay deliveries.

The World Health Organization has said that a record 9.5 million COVID-19 cases were tallied over the last week as the omicron variant of the coronavirus swept the planet, a 71% increase from the previous 7-day period that the U.N. health agency likened to a "tsunami." However, the number of weekly recorded deaths declined.

"Last week, the highest number of COVID-19 cases were reported so far in the pandemic," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. He said the WHO was certain that was an underestimate because of a backlog in testing around the year-end holidays.

Experts say testing is the best way to determine what you have since symptoms of the illnesses can overlap.

The viruses that cause colds, the flu and COVID-19 are spread the same way — through droplets from the nose and mouth of infected people. And they can all be spread before a person realizes they're infected.

Orthodox Christians in Russia, Serbia and other countries began Christmas observances Thursday amid restrictions aimed at dampening the spread of the coronavirus, but few worshipers appeared concerned as they streamed into churches.

The majority of Orthodox believers celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7, with midnight services especially popular. The churches in Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Greece mark it on Dec. 25 along with other Christian denominations.

The U.S., Britain, France and Australia have all announced record numbers of daily Covid-19 cases as the WHO warned that Omicron's dizzying spread increased the risk of newer, more dangerous variants emerging.

Britain breached 200,000 cases for the first time on Tuesday, Australia posted almost 50,000 and France registered more than 270,000, all three countries easily topping their previous records.

President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday faced anger from opponents and chaos in parliament after warning French people not yet vaccinated against Covid-19 that they would be squeezed out of key aspects of life.

More than one in 20 people in Britain had Covid-19 in the last week of 2021, the highest infection rate recorded during the pandemic, official data showed Wednesday.