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Retrieved from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
By Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden
People queue outside a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in London, Britain, December 13, 2021. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
At least one person has died in the United Kingdom after contracting the Omicron coronavirus variant, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday, the first publicly confirmed death globally from the swiftly spreading strain.
Since the first Omicron cases were detected on Nov. 27 in Britain, Johnson has imposed tougher restrictions and on Sunday cautioned that the variant could overcome the immune defences of those inoculated with two shots of vaccines.
Britain gave no details on the death other than the person had been diagnosed in hospital. It was not clear if the patient had been vaccinated or had underlying health issues.
Deaths from Omicron may have occurred in other countries but none has been publicly confirmed yet outside Britain.
"Sadly at least one patient has now been confirmed to have died with Omicron," Johnson told reporters at a vaccination centre in London.
"So I think the idea that this is somehow a milder version of the virus - I think that's something we need to set (to) one side - and just recognise the sheer pace at which it accelerates through the population."
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the variant now accounted for 44% of infections in London and would be the dominant strain in the capital within 48 hours. New Omicron infections are estimated at 200,000 per day, Javid said.
Before the death was announced, Britain said 10 people had been hospitalised with Omicron in various parts of England. Their ages ranged from 18 to 85 years and most had received two vaccination doses.
The UK Health Security Agency said Omicron - first detected in South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong in late November - can overcome the immunity of those who have had two shots of vaccines such as AstraZeneca (AZN.L) or Pfizer-BioNTech (PFE.N), .
South Africa's health ministry said it was unable to say with certainty if any of its COVID-19 deaths were caused by Omicron as deaths were not broken down by variant.
The World Health Organization said on Sunday that while preliminary findings from South Africa suggest Omicron may be less severe than the Delta variant - currently dominant worldwide, and all cases reported in the Europe region have been mild or asymptomatic, it remains unclear to what extent Omicron may be inherently less virulent.
NEW LOCKDOWNS?
Johnson, now grappling with a rebellion in his party over measures to curb Omicron and an outcry over staff parties at his Downing Street office during last year's lockdowns, said people should rush to get booster vaccines to protect "our freedoms and our way of life".
After COVID-19 was first detected in China in late 2019, he faced criticism for initially resisting lockdown.
He has also been criticised for overseeing mistakes in transferring patients into care homes, and for building a costly test-and-trace system that failed to stop a deadly second wave.
Johnson has repeatedly said that while mistakes were made, the government was making decisions swiftly in the biggest public health crisis for generations and that it was quick to roll out vaccines.
More than 146,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the United Kingdom.
Asked if he could rule out tougher restrictions in England before Christmas, Johnson avoided giving a direct answer. His health minister, Javid, said he knew of no plans for additional measures. "There are no plans that I am aware of for any further restrictions," Javid said.
VACCINE QUEUES
Johnson faces growing anger from libertarians in his party over tougher curbs on daily life and sinking poll ratings.
He has also faced criticism over his handling of a sleaze scandal, the awarding of lucrative COVID contracts, the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat, and a claim that he intervened to ensure pets were evacuated from Kabul during the chaotic Western withdrawal from Afghanistan in August.
An Ipsos MORI poll for The London Evening Standard newspaper showed opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer's ranking was 13 percentage points ahead of Johnson, the first time a Labour chief was viewed as a more capable prime minister since 2008.
It also echoed other polls by showing Labour up three points on 39% ahead of Johnson's Conservatives, who were down one point since the last survey in November on 35%. read more
At St. Thomas' Hospital Vaccination Centre in central London, a queue of hundreds of people snaked back onto Westminster Bridge. Reuters journalists also documented queues across London and in Manchester, northern England.
"The COVID vaccine booking service is currently facing extremely high demand so is operating a queuing system," the National Health Service said on Twitter. It suggested trying again later.
Home testing kits were also unavailable to order.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britain-says-omicron-spreading-phenomenal-rate-2021-12-13/
The Regeneron Pharmaceuticals company logo is seen on a building at the company's Westchester campus in Tarrytown, New York, U.S. September 17, 2020. Picture taken September 17, 2020. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Malaysia's health ministry said on Tuesday it has given conditional approval for the use of the single-dose antibody cocktail Ronapreve, developed by Regeneron (REGN.O) and Roche (ROG.S), to treat COVID-19.
It has also approved a request from Merck & Co (MRK.N) for a clinical trial import license for its COVID-19 pill Molnupiravir, to be used as part of studies being conducted in Malaysia, the ministry said in a statement.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britain-says-omicron-spreading-phenomenal-rate-2021-12-13/
By Sumit Khanna
A healthcare worker announces to people to get their rapid antigen tests done during a door-to-door survey for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Jakhan village in the western state of Gujarat, India, September 22, 2020. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo
India's western state of Gujarat has acknowledged more COVID-19 deaths than its official tally, according to a court document filed on Monday, lending weight to fears that the country's actual toll was much higher than reported.
Reuters and other media have reported, based on figures collected from crematoriums and cemeteries, that during India's record second wave of cases between April and June, states including Gujarat undercounted deaths as many people died at home due to a severe shortage of hospital beds and oxygen.
Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state, told the Supreme Court it had received 22,557 applications as of Thursday from families of the dead seeking compensation and 16,175 had been approved, according to an affidavit seen by Reuters.
Its reported death count is 10,099, according to the state's latest health bulletin.
A Gujarat official with direct knowledge of the matter said applications had now swelled to more than 40,000 and nearly half had been approved. All of them would get 50,000 rupees ($659) each.
India has reported a total of 475,636 COVID-19 deaths, including many revised figures from states that have come under pressure from courts to accurately represent the scale of the disaster.
The main opposition Congress party said it believed the actual death toll to be still higher.
"We have been saying from the beginning that the Gujarat government has been underreporting COVID-19 cases and deaths," said Manish Doshi, chief spokesperson of Gujarat Congress, adding its surveys had shown at least 55,000 deaths.
Gujarat Revenue Minister Rajendra Trivedi, whose department is paying the compensation, did not respond to requests for comment.
Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-gujarat-state-acknowledges-more-covid-19-deaths-than-official-tally-2021-12-13/
By Maggie Astor
Terry Reynolds, 66, praying last week at the bedside of his wife, Carolyn, 69, in the South Seven Intensive Care Unit of North Memorial Health Hospital in Robbinsdale, Minn. They were both unvaccinated against the coronavirus.Credit...Photo by Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune, via Getty Images
The total number of known coronavirus cases in the United States surpassed 50 million on Monday, according to a New York Times database.
Fifty million can be a difficult number to grasp. It is more than the combined populations of Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Ohio. More than the entire population of Spain. Nearly 18 times the number of dollars an American college graduate can expect to earn in a lifetime.
And it is almost certainly a substantial undercount of cases, since many infected people have no symptoms or mistake them for those of another illness, and not everyone gets tested — to say nothing of the huge shortage of available tests in the early weeks of the pandemic.
Daily reports of new cases, which fell steadily in the early autumn, have been rising sharply in the last few weeks as the prevalent Delta variant continues to spread, especially in the Midwest, Southwest and New England. And much remains unknown about the worrisome new Omicron variant.
Hospitalizations and deaths have started to rise as well, and experts say the holidays and winter weather will probably make matters worse. Though the increases and Omicron may have helped to prompt more vaccinations, more than one-quarter of the population still has not received even one dose, and about 61 percent are fully vaccinated.
Still, the official tally of 50 million cases and counting is one more painful marker in two years that have been riddled with them — one more occasion to take stock of what has been lost.
More than 796,000 people have died in the United States because of the virus — a toll unfathomable to most Americans when the pandemic began. The first 100,000 deaths hit like a gut punch. But as successive round-number milestones were passed, they attracted less and less notice.
Then there are the untold ranks of the walking wounded: loved ones of the dead, of course, but also people coping with long-haul symptoms. Many viral illnesses are capable of causing chronic disability in a small percentage of patients, but when the denominator is 50 million, even a small percentage is a lot of people. Many of them have struggled to find treatment in, or even to be believed by, a health care system that has sometimes buckled under the weight of the acutely ill.
There are the mental health struggles wrought by fear and isolation. There is the economy, which is better than it was in the worst depths of the pandemic, but not yet near where it was before March 2020.
And there are the changes to the very fabric of how we live our lives: how we work and where, and even whether we are employed at all. How our children learn, and who cares for them.
Eventually, the experts say, the pandemic will abate, as previous pandemics have done. Americans will someday forget numbers like 50 million. But their ripples will be everywhere.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/13/us/50-million-covid-cases.html
By Carl Zimmer and Emily Anthes
Sarah Bülow Carlsen, 11, received a coronavirus vaccination last month in Amagar, Denmark.Credit...Olafur Steinar Gestsson/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images
Public health authorities in Denmark and Norway on Monday released grim projections for the coming wave of the Omicron coronavirus variant, predicting that it will dominate both countries in a matter of days. Although scientists don’t yet know how often the variant causes severe disease, they say its rapid rate of spread will lead to an explosion of cases and could potentially increase pressure on hospitals, even if it proves to be mild.
The reports follow similarly worrisome findings from Englandreleased over the weekend, although researchers caution that the trend could change as the variant comes into clearer view. It’s not yet certain how often Omicron infections will send people to the hospital, or how many hospitalized patients are likely to die. And while Omicron can partly evade immune defenses, researchers have yet to determine how well vaccinations and previous infections will protect people against severe disease.
The authors of both new reports also observed that swift actions now, such as booster campaigns and reducing opportunities for Omicron to spread, could lessen the variant’s impact.
American researchers have yet to release models of Omicron’s rise in the United States. But experts point out that the country is similar to Norway and Denmark in terms of vaccination levels and certain Covid risk factors, like the average age of the population.
“It would be naïve to think the United States would be any different than Denmark,” Mads Albertsen, a microbiologist at Aalborg University, said. “Denmark is likely a best-case scenario.”
In recent weeks, many epidemiologists have been paying close attention to Denmark, a country of 5.8 million residents, about the population of Wisconsin.
Early in the pandemic, the country set up a sophisticated surveillance system combining large-scale coronavirus testing with genetic sequencing of many samples. That strategy has allowed Denmark to spot newly emerging variants, even when they’re at low levels, and adjust public health policies to prepare for new surges.
The first Omicron sample from Denmark was sequenced on Dec. 3. The specimen was collected on Nov. 23, around the same time researchers in South Africa first told the world about a rise in cases there.
Because sequencing genetic material from coronavirus samples can take days, Danish researchers developed a quick genetic test that picks up a few key mutations found only in Omicron. Every positive test result in Denmark is now screened for the new variant, resulting in an exceptionally comprehensive picture of Omicron’s spread.
In the report released on Monday by the Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, researchers estimated that Omicron cases in Denmark were doubling every two days. Omicron is spreading much faster than Delta, which means that the new variant will become dominant by midweek, the report found.
Three-quarters of the Omicron cases are in people who have received two vaccine doses, which is about the same fraction of the entire country that’s fully vaccinated. That high percentage indicates that vaccines are providing little protection from infection, though most scientists believe that the shots will still fend off severe disease and death.
The Danish data are consistent with a smaller report of Omicron infections in the United States. Out of 43 documented cases, 34 — or about 79 percent — were people who were fully vaccinated.
“This thing can spread, and it can spread whether or not you were vaccinated,” Christina Ramirez, a biostatistician at the University of California, Los Angeles, said.
In England, researchers also found that full vaccination provided low protection against a breakthrough infection. But they found that booster shots restored defenses to much higher levels.
In these European countries, Omicron will not simply replace Delta: It will drive up cases. Currently, Denmark is seeing around 6,000 cases a day — already a record for the country and driven almost entirely by Delta. The Danish researchers project that Omicron will drive the daily cases to 10,000 by the end of the week, and the numbers will continue to climb from there.
Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/13/world/covid-omicron-vaccines/denmark-and-norway-predict-a-drastic-spike-in-omicron-cases
South Korea marked its deadliest day of the pandemic on Tuesday with 94 deaths reported.
Health experts warn that hospitals are stretched thin, leaving people dying while waiting for beds and the country’s medical system is quickly approaching its limits.
A record 906 Covid patients were in serious or critical condition, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said in a statement on Tuesday.
Park Hyang, a senior Health Ministry official, said medical resources are quickly running out in densely populated capital Seoul and nearby metropolitan areas, where around 86% of intensive care units designated for Covid-19 treatment were already occupied and more than 800 patients were still waiting to be admitted. The KDCA said at least 17 patients died last week at home or at facilities while waiting for beds.
Officials have been squeezing hospitals to set aside more beds for Covid patients while scrambling to speed up the administration of booster shots by shortening the interval between second and third shots from four or five months to three months starting this week.
As of Tuesday, more than 81% in a population of more than 51 million were fully vaccinated, but only 13% were administered booster shots.
Officials may decide to further strengthen restrictions this week, depending on the numbers of infections and hospitalisation, Park said during a briefing.
Here’s a round-up of the day’s leading Covid stories:
· Omicron has killed at least one person in Britain, prime minister Boris Johnson revealed.
· Boris Johnson issued an appeal to members of the public to step forward to assist the Covid booster jab programme.
· Norway tightens Covid measures and bans serving of alcohol in bid to halt Omicron outbreak.
· Protests in Latvia turned violent after a police officer was injured and four demonstrators arrested as several thousand people in the capital Riga protested anti-Covid restrictions.
· Peru says it is battling a “resurgence” of the pandemic, with infections and deaths rising. The country has the world’s highest coronavirus death rate.
· China has recorded its first case of the Omicron variant, state media report authorities in the northeastern city of Tianjin as saying.
· In Denmark, health authorities say a third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine will be offered sooner to everyone over 40 to curb the spread of the Omicron variant.
· The US Air Force has discharged 27 people for refusing to get the Covid-19 vaccine, making them what officials believe are the first service members to be removed for disobeying the mandate to get the shots.
· California will impose a statewide mask mandate in all indoor public spaces.
· Covid-19 cases in Canada may rapidly rise in the coming days due to community spread of the Omicron variant.
· Nigeria will destroy around one million expired Covid-19 vaccines, Faisal Shuaib, head of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), said.
· At least 200,000 Covid-19 vaccines have expired in Senegalwithout being used in the past two months and another 200,000 are set to expire at the end of December because demand is too slow, the head of its immunisation programme said.
· Thailand will halve to three months the time between administering a second Covid-19 vaccine shot and a booster, health officials said.
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