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Retrieved from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
By Matt Spetalnick and Susan Heavey
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has spread to about one-third of U.S. states, but the Delta version remains the majority of COVID-19 infections as cases rise nationwide, U.S. health officials said on Sunday.
Though the emergence of the new variant has caused alarm worldwide, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease official, told CNN "thus far it does not look like there's a great degree of severity to it." He added that it was too early to draw definitive conclusions and that more study is needed.
Fauci, U.S. President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, said he also hoped the United States would lift its ban on travelers from southern African countries in a "reasonable period of time."
The South African government has complained it is being punished - instead of applauded - for discovering the new variant and quickly informing international health officials.
Fauci, in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union," praised South Africa for its transparency and said the U.S. travel ban was imposed at a time "when we were really in the dark" and needed time to study the variant.
At least 16 U.S. states have reported Omicron cases: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin, according to a Reuters tally.
Many of the cases were among fully vaccinated individuals with mild symptoms, although the booster shot status of some patients was not reported.
Despite several dozen Omicron cases, the Delta variant still accounts for 99.9% of new COVID cases in the United States, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told ABC News in an interview.
"We are everyday hearing about more and more probable cases so that number is likely to rise," she said.
The United States over the last seven days has averaged 119,000 new cases a day and lost nearly 1,300 lives to COVID each day, according to a Reuters tally.
Louisiana currently has one Omicron case from an individual who traveled within the United States, its health department said on Sunday.
Travellers check a departures list at the ticketing level of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport before the Thanksgiving holiday in Seattle, Washington, U.S. November 24, 2021. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson/File Photo/File Photo
On Saturday, it said a Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd (NCLH.N) cruise ship set to dock in New Orleans with more than 3,000 passengers found 10 cases of COVID-19 on board.
Officials said passengers on the Norwegian Breakaway, which stopped in Belize, Honduras and Mexico, would be tested and given the CDC's post-exposure and quarantine guidelines. read more
The emergence of the new variant has sharply curtailed the number of energy executives and government ministers planning to attend the four-day World Petroleum Congress in Houston this week, which had already been rescheduled from 2020. read more
But travel restrictions and worries over the new variant saw energy ministers from Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Argentina, Equatorial Guinea, Greece, Turkey and Romania - bowed out, WPC officials said on Sunday.
Governors of two states with reported Omicron cases -- Connecticut and Colorado -- said they hoped their higher-than-average vaccination rates would blunt the impact.
"We want to see how well the vaccinations hold up," Colorado's Jared Polis told ABC.
As U.S. Omicron cases emerge, COVID-19 vaccine makers aim to quickly tweak their shots to target the variant and U.S. regulators have vowed speedy reviews, but that could still take months.
"Certainly, FDA (Food and Drug Administration) will move swiftly and CDC will move swiftly," Walensky said.
Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) has targeted U.S. approval of an updated vaccine as soon as March, but company officials on Sunday said it will still take time to increase output. read more
Moderna Co-founder and Chairman Noubar Afeyan told CNN it would take another seven to 10 days to gather key data. Then, it "will take a good 60 to 100 days" to deploy an Omicron-specific shot, although other options like a higher dose of the current booster are being explored, he said.
U.S. government officials are also working with Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) on updated shots, while Pfizer and Merck & Co Inc (MRK.N)are pursuing COVID-19 pill treatments.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fauci-says-he-hopes-us-travel-ban-southern-africa-can-be-lifted-reasonable-2021-12-05/
By Lidia Kelly
A healthcare professional prepares a dose of the Pfizer coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine as high-risk workers receive the first vaccines in the state of Victoria's rollout of the program, in Melbourne, Australia, February 22, 2021. REUTERS/Sandra Sanders
Australia's medicine regulator on Sunday provisionally approved the Pfizer Inc coronavirus vaccine for children between the ages of 5 and 11, with the health minister saying the rollout could begin from Jan. 10.
The Therapeutics Goods Administration "have made a careful, thorough assessment, determined that it is safe and effective and that it is in the interests of children and Australians for children 5 to 11 to be vaccinated," said Health Minister Greg Hunt.
After initial delays with its general COVID-19 inoculation programme, Australia has swiftly become one of the world's most-vaccinated countries, with nearly 88% of Australians over the age of 16 having received two doses.
The high vaccination has helped slow the spread of the virus and promote a speedy economic recovery, with the government planning to raise its 2022 growth forecast within weeks.
The efficacy of vaccines against the new Omicron variant, which is spreading in Australia, remains unknown.
The most populous state, New South Wales, reported two more Omicron cases on Sunday, bringing the total to 15 cases, and the Australian Capital Territory confirmed its second.
Parliament House was closed over the weekend to the public until further notice after a staffer to a member of parliament tested positive to COVID-19 after the legislature's final sitting week of the year on Friday.
The variant of that infection case has not been disclosed, but health authorities said the staff was fully vaccinated.
While nationwide vaccinations are voluntary, states and territories have mandated shots for many occupations, and some require full vaccination to access most hospitality services and non-essential retail.
Australia's overall childhood immunisation coverage is also one of the highest in the world, with 95% of 5-year-olds inoculated with vaccines recommended for their age, health data showed.
The Pfizer vaccine for those children still needs the approval of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation. Once approved, it will be available to about 2.3 million children in the 5-to-11 age group.
Despite battling many outbreaks this year, leading to months of lockdown in Sydney and Melbourne - Australia's largest cities - the country has had only about 834 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 7.9 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the World Health Organisation, a fraction of the toll in many other developed nations.
Australia has had just under 217,000 cases in total and 2,042 deaths.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/australias-medicine-regulator-approves-pfizer-vaccine-children-5-11-2021-12-04/
By Niki Kitsantonis
Cleaning the road in front of the Holy Cross Catholic Church in Nicosia, Cyprus, on Thursday before Pope Francis arrived.Credit...Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters
Stringent restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus were in place on the Greek island of Lesbos for a visit on Sunday by Pope Francis, who also traveled to Cyprus this past week as part of his continuing efforts to draw attention to the plight of the world’s migrants.
The pope was emotionally received by crowds of migrants when he visited Lesbos five years ago, at a time when the island had become a gateway for thousands of people desperate to settle in Europe. This year, with the pandemic showing no signs of easing as the Omicron variant is spreading, his reception was very different.
A large tent was set up on the grounds of a new facility for migrants on Lesbos, and the pope delivered a speech there on Sunday morning, but the event was held amid strict limits on attendance.
A maximum of 160 migrants were admitted into the tent, with all required to be vaccinated and have a negative test result as an extra precaution, according to an official involved in the arrangements for the visit.
Later in the day, the pope was traveling to the Greek capital for a service at the Athens Concert Hall. Attendance at the venue was being restricted to half-capacity, and access permitted only to adults with vaccination certificates and children with negative test results, a Greek Health Ministry official said.
At an outdoor stadium in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. About 5,000 people attended, according to the Cypriot police — less than a quarter of the venue’s maximum capacity, with all visitors required to present proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test.
The pope’s visit comes as both Greece and Cyprus ramp up their responses amid rising infection rates.
Greece, which in the spring was among the first places in Europe to reopen its borders to international travelers, brought in new restrictions for unvaccinated people last month. And this past week, only days before announcing the country’s first recorded case of the Omicron variant, the Greek authorities imposed a vaccine mandate for people over 60, with fines for those who do not comply.
Cyprus this past week decided on new measures, to come into effect on Monday, including obligatory P.C.R. tests for all travelers flying into the country.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/05/world/pope-francis-greece-migrants/how-covid-is-affecting-the-popes-visit-to-greece-and-cyprus
Sizakele Mathe, left, a treatment adherence counselor, with Silendile Mdunge in the township of Ntuzuma, north of Durban, South Africa. When Ms. Mdunge stopped taking her H.I.V. medication, Ms. Mathe helped persuade her to continue.Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Times
Stephanie Nolen covers global health for The New York Times. She has reported on public health, economic development and humanitarian crises from more than 80 countries around the world. This is an excerpt from her report on South Africa’s variant hunters.
NTUZUMA, South Africa — A few months ago, Sizakele Mathe, a community health worker in this sprawling hillside township on the edge of the city of Durban, was notified by a clinic that a neighbor had stopped picking up her medication. It was a warning sign that she had likely stopped taking the antiretroviral tablet that suppresses her H.I.V. infection.
That was a threat to her own health — and, in the era of Covid-19, it might have posed a risk to everyone else’s. The clinic dispatched Ms. Mathe to climb a hill, wend her way down a narrow path and try to get the woman back on the pills.
Ms. Mathe, as cheerful as she is relentless, is part of a national door-to-door nagging campaign. It’s half of a sophisticated South African effort to stanch the emergence of new variants of the coronavirus, like Omicron, which was identified here and shook the world this past week.
The other half takes place at a state-of-the-art laboratory 25 miles down the road. At the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform in Durban, scientists sequence the genomes of thousands of coronavirus samples each week. The KRISP lab, as it is known, is part of a national network of virus researchers that identified both the Beta and Omicron variants, drawing on expertise developed here during the region’s decades-long fight with H.I.V.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/04/world/omicron-variant-covid/our-reporter-goes-inside-south-africas-fine-tuned-hunt-for-variants
By Megan Specia and Isabella Kwai
Shoppers on Oxford Street in London on Sunday. Britain has reported 246 cases and counting of the Omicron coronavirus variant. Credit...Henry Nicholls/Reuters
LONDON — Dozens of new cases of the Omicron variant were reported in Britain and Denmark on Sunday, adding to increases across Europe and fueling fears that the virus has already spread widely.
The coronavirus variant has spread to at least 45 nations worldwide, with the United States and much of Europe reporting a number of new cases in recent days. And while much uncertainty remains about what impact the Omicron variant will have on the pandemic, many nations have scrambled to impose travel restrictions — or in some cases introduced more serious measures.
With cases of Omicron now growing worldwide, the prospects of even more stringent restrictions are looming over a holiday period that many had hoped would be a return to some normalcy. In Europe, already the epicenter of a surge in the pandemic in recent weeks, the uncertainties raised by Omicron have ignited fears that the winter ahead will be more difficult than anticipated.
On Sunday, Britain’s health security agency confirmed 86 additional cases of the Omicron variant, bringing the total nationally to 246, while authorities in Denmark reported 183 cases of the variant. Both nations are widely seen as leaders in genomic sequencing and testing, giving them an edge in tracking the spread of the virus and its mutations.
Michael Ryan, the head of the emergencies program at the World Health Organization, speaking last week at a news conference, said European countries should have taken more precautions this autumn to protect their populations.
“We will have to be a little patient in order to understand the implications of the Omicron variant,” he said, “but, certainly we are dealing with a crisis now. And that crisis is in Europe, and it is being driven by the Delta variant.”
Now, he said, it is time for “everyone to recommit ourselves to controlling the pandemic of multiple strains or multiple variants of the same virus.”
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/05/world/omicron-variant-covid/jump-in-cases-of-omicron-variant-puts-europe-on-edge
A woman and child wear face masks to gather to place krathongs (floating baskets) into a river during the Loy Krathong festival, in Bangkok, Thailand. Photograph: Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters
Thailand has detected its first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant in a US citizen who had travelled to the country from Spain late last month, a health official said on Monday, Reuters reports.
The confirmed case in the man, who had arrived on 29 November, makes Thailand the 47th country to have found the new variant, Opas Karnkawinpong, Director-General of the Department of Disease Control, told a news conference.
“This first confirmed case of Omicron variant is a 35-year-old man who is a US citizen who lived in Spain for a year,” Opas said adding that the patient had mild symptom.
Opas said health authorities were conducting further tests of people who had come into contact with the man, but said all contacts so far were low risk.
Thailand banned travellers from eight African countries including Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe at the start of December amid concerns about the Omicron variant.
Opas said authorities had also limited travel from other African countries and were monitoring for more potential cases among international travellers.
Here’s a round-up of the day’s leading Covid stories:
· The incoming German government wants to make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory from 16 March for people working in hospitals, nursing homes and other medical practices, according to a copy of draft legislation seen by Reuters on Sunday.
· Thailand has detected its first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant in a US citizen who had travelled to the country from Spain late last month, a health official said.
· South Korea reported another 4,325 confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours and a further 41 deaths.
· India reported an additional 8,306 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours and a further 211 deaths. The nation’s active caseload currently stands at 98,416 and is the lowest reported in 552 days.
· South Africa reported a daily increase of 11,125 new Covid cases on Sunday, a slight decrease in number on previous days.
· New Zealand purchased 60,000 courses of Pfizer’s oral antiviral medication to treat early infections of Covid-19, subject to Medsafe approval, prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced.
· A probable case of the Omicron variant has been identified in a crew member of a Norwegian Cruise ship that reached New Orleans on Sunday.
· Dr Anthony Fauci said the threat to the US from the Omicron variant remained to be determined – but that signs from South Africa, where the variant emerged, were encouraging.
· The Omicron variant has been found in at least 16 US states so far, with the number of cases “likely to rise”, Dr Rochelle Walensky, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Sunday.
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