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Retrieved from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
By Stephanie Nebehay
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a ceremony to launch a multiyear partnership with Qatar on making FIFA Football World Cup 2022 and mega sporting events healthy and safe at the WHO headquarters, in Geneva, Switzerland, October 18, 2021. Fabrice Coffrini/ Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Governments need to reassess national responses to COVID-19 and speed up vaccination programmes to tackle Omicron, though it is it too early to say how well existing shots will protect against the new variant, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.
The variant's global spread suggests it could have a major impact on the COVID-19 pandemic, and the time to contain it is now before more Omicron patients are hospitalised, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
"We call on all countries to increase surveillance, testing and sequencing," he told a media briefing. "... Any complacency now will cost lives."
WHO emergency director Mike Ryan said that as the variant appears to be more easily spread, efforts must be redoubled to break chains of transmission.
The WHO noted early evidence from BioNTech and Pfizer (PFE.N) of the effectiveness of their vaccine against Omicron read more .
The German and U.S. companies said on Wednesday a three-shot course of their COVID-19 vaccine was able to neutralise the new Omicron variant in a laboratory test, while two doses resulted in lower neutralising antibodies by a factor of 25.
Warning against jumping to conclusions from the test, the WHO's chief scientist said it was too soon to say whether the reduction in neutralising antibodies meant the shot was less effective.
"It is premature to conclude that this reduction in neutralising activity would result in a significant reduction in vaccine effectiveness. We do not know that because as you know the immune system is much more complex," Swaminathan said.
"And so what we need now is a coordinated research effort and not jumping to conclusions study by study."
Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo, WHO head of research and development unit, said that its closed-door meeting of experts on Monday had reviewed variability in the results of early data on vaccine effectiveness against Omicron.
"Neutralising antibodies are an important piece of information, they play an important role in the control of the infection, but they are only one part of the protection against severe disease," she said.
The WHO also said it would publish a review of its stance on booster doses within days, but with vaccination rates worryingly low in much of the developing world, administering primary doses - rather than boosters - remained its priority.
"Wholesale boosters are not the solution," Swaminathan said.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/act-now-curb-omicrons-spread-whos-tedros-tells-world-2021-12-08/
By Rocky Swift
Pedestrians wearing protective masks, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, make their way at the Ameyoko shopping district in Tokyo, Japan, December 1, 2021. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
Japan's COVID-19 infections are falling in contrast with rebounds in other parts of Asia, baffling experts.
New daily infections have slowed to fewer than one per million people, the least among major economies except China, and fatalities have fallen to zero in recent days.
South Korea, with similar vaccination coverage, is seeing record infections. Cases remain elevated in Singapore and are rising again in Australia as authorities there relax stringent controls on movement. read more
One new hypothesis to explain the divergence is that the type of coronavirus dominant in Japan evolved in a way that short-circuited its ability to replicate.
Ituro Inoue, a professor at Japan's National Institute of Genetics, said that subvariant of Delta, known as AY.29, now may be conferring some immunity in the population.
"I think AY.29 is protecting us from other strains," Inoue said, cautioning that his research remained a theory.
"I'm not 100% confident."
Paul Griffin, a professor at the University of Queensland, said differences in case loads between countries resulted from a complex mix of weather, population density, and varying strategies to fight the pandemic.
"We do need to try and take learnings away from other countries, but we shouldn't assume the same experience from country to country, because there are all those variables," Griffin said.
"Some countries are using strategies in addition to vaccination to control the spread, whether it's simple measures on hand hygiene, social distancing, and the use of masks and whether that's mandatory or voluntary."
Japan never locked down in the way that many countries did, but it also never let up on behavioural edicts and border restrictions employed before vaccines arrived.
"Wearing masks and personal hygiene rituals are still the same and important," said Kazuaki Jindai, a researcher at Tohoku University. "The vaccine is a crucial aspect of prevention but not the silver bullet."
Even accounting for vaccines and masking, some think the speed of the decline of cases in Japan is a matter of timing.
Japan's late start on vaccination means that the potency of the shots are still strong. Others point to seasonal trends, that the virus tends to crest and fall in two-month intervals.
WINTER IS COMING
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is leaving little to chance as Japan enters its winter months, which last year saw a deadly infection wave that started in the colder north. He ordered borders shut last week to keep out the Omicron variant of the virus, discovered four times so far in Japan.
In contrast, Australia is going ahead with plans to reopen the economy. Now that the country has hit its vaccination targets and with the arrival of COVID-19 therapeutics, it is time to tolerate an uptick in cases, Griffin said.
"Hopefully locking down is something that we reserve for extenuating circumstances," he said.
Whatever the cause of the decline in cases in Japan, Kishida says it is important to prepare for the worst. Booster shots started last week, and the government has increased hospital capacity by more than 30% since some patients died at home during a fifth wave in August, the worst so far.
Researcher Jindai welcomes those preparations but worries about how they will be implemented and whether Japan can shore up its management of healthcare data, which has been a weak point.
"If the ICU beds are full, that means all downstream healthcare will be compromised," said Jindai, who also works as a physician in Kanagawa prefecture, south of Tokyo. "Until we have the sixth wave in front of us, we can't be sure if those measures worked or not."
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japans-covid-19-cases-defy-asia-rebound-yet-fears-remain-winter-wave-2021-12-09/
By Stephen Castle and Megan Specia
Shoppers on Oxford Street in London last week.Credit...Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
It is called “Plan B,” and for many Britons, it is about to make pandemic life a little more complicated.
The British authorities announced Wednesday that they were imposing major new restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus, urging people to work from home and introducing a vaccine passport for some indoor venues.
Citing the spread of the Omicron variant, Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the decision a “proportionate and responsible” response.
But it is called Plan B for a reason.
Britain has now put in place a contingency plan that was intended to be used only if new coronavirus case numbers rose to such an extent that the health system could be under threat. And Mr. Johnson’s government had made no secret of its opposition to some of it central provisions.
But on Wednesday, the prime minister said there was little choice.
“I know this will be hard for many people,” he said at an evening news conference, “but by reducing your contacts in the workplace, you will help slow transmission.”
Under the measures, proof of vaccination will be needed to enter some venues in England, among them nightclubs, and mask mandates in public spaces will be extended. Similar “vaccine passport” systems are already either in place or planned in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
The announcement comes at an awkward time for Mr. Johnson.
In recent days, Mr. Johnson has come under mounting political pressure over reports that his staff breached lockdown rules last Christmas by holding a party in Downing Street. Earlier Wednesday, a spokeswoman, Allegra Stratton, resigned after a video emerged from last year of her and other aides joking about whether the illicit party had been held.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/08/world/omicron-variant-covid/as-virus-cases-climb-britain-is-resorting-to-tougher-pandemic-rules
By Lynsey Chutel
Receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease vaccine in Johannesburg last weekend.Credit...Sumaya Hisham/Reuters
JOHANNESBURG — The children had gone to the hospital for various reasons: One had jaundice, another malaria. A third had a broken bone. But once they were admitted, they all tested positive for the coronavirus, a worrying trend in South African hospitals that hints at how transmissible the new variant, Omicron, may be.
The doctors in the children’s wards of two large hospitals in Johannesburg say they have not seen a spike in admissions, and they still do not know whether the children have Omicron. But the increase in the number of those who test positive after coming in may provide a glimpse into the behavior of the heavily mutated variant that was discovered just last month, and about which little is known.
“Our suspicion is that Covid positivity rates in the community setting are very, very high at the moment and increasing,” said Dr. Gary Reubenson, a pediatrician at the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital in Johannesburg.
Young children under 12 are not yet eligible for Covid-19 vaccines in South Africa, which also leaves them more vulnerable.
While it is still too soon to draw any conclusions about the severity of the illness caused by Omicron, early modeling and analysissuggest that it may move twice as fast as the Delta variant.
“What is scary now is the proportion of patients who are positive among those who are admitted is very high,” said Dr. Sithembiso Velaphi, who works at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. “The number of admissions overall has not increased.”
And although the number of young patients is relatively small, doctors noted that few of the children so far have needed oxygen.
The number of coronavirus cases in South Africa continues to rise exponentially in a fourth wave of infections that epidemiologists believe is driven by Omicron. Since the variant was first sequenced and announced by South African doctors on Nov. 25, it has become the dominant version among samples tested in the country.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/08/world/omicron-variant-covid/virus-cases-are-rising-among-children-in-south-african-hospitals
By Emily Anthes
Nearly two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, the world remains “dangerously unprepared” for the next major outbreak, according to a new report.
The 2021 Global Health Security Index, released on Wednesday, ranks 195 countries according to their capacity to respond to epidemics and pandemics. The inaugural version of the index, published just months before the first Covid-19 cases were detected, concluded that no nation was ready for such a crisis.
Overall, the world is not any better prepared today, according to the 2021 index, which was created by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global security nonprofit group, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
More than 90 percent of countries have no plan for distributing vaccines or medications during an emergency, while 70 percent lack sufficient capacity in hospitals, clinics and health centers, the report found. Political and security risks have risen worldwide, and public confidence in government is declining.
Although many nations have funneled resources into addressing the acute Covid-19 crisis, few have made dedicated investments in improving overall emergency preparedness, the report found.
“We documented the places where improvements for Covid were made,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Bloomberg School and one of the two lead authors of the report.
But, she said, unless political leaders “act to ensure that what we’ve worked hard to develop in the midst of Covid doesn’t just erode after the event is over, we could find ourselves back where we started, or worse.”
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/08/world/omicron-variant-covid/the-world-is-unprepared-for-the-next-pandemic-a-report-says
Here’s a round-up of the day’s leading Covid stories:
· The Omicron variant of Covid-19 has now been reported in 57 countries and continues to spread rapidly in South Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. However, it is too early to tell if it is more infectious.
· British prime minister Boris Johnson imposed tougher Covid-19 restrictions in England, ordering people to work from home, wear masks in public places and use vaccine passes to slow the spread of the Omicron variant.
· The UK Health Security Agency said the Omicron variant was likely to outcompete Delta and replace it to become dominant, and that it could account for at least half of new cases in the next 2-4 weeks.
· The Democratic-controlled US Senate approved a Republican measure that would overturn president Joe Biden’s Covid-19 vaccine-or-test mandate for private businesses, with two Democrats joining Republicans to back the initiative.
· France may introduce a fourth Covid vaccine booster shot, the government’s top Covid-19 adviser Jean-Francois Delfraissy has said.
· Cuba detected its first Omicron case in a person who had travelled from Mozambique, Cuban state media agency ACN reported late.
· Indian Covid-19 vaccine makers are lobbying the government to authorise boosters as supplies have outstripped demand.
· South Africa reported nearly 20,000 new cases on Wednesday, a record since Omicron was detected, and 36 new Covid-related deaths.
· The US Food and Drug Administration authorised the use of AstraZeneca’s antibody cocktail to prevent Covid-19 infections in individuals with weak immune systems or a history of severe side effects from coronavirus vaccines.
· Three doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine are likely to protect against infection with the Omicron variant but two doses may not, according to laboratory data.
· A mix-and-match approach to Covid-19 vaccines is safe and effective, and some combinations even improve upon immune responses, UK researchers found.
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