SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea reported a record daily 5,352 new COVID-19 infections and 70 deaths, while a nationwide total of nine cases of the Omicron variant have been confirmed, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said on Saturday. The government on Friday announced that people visiting restaurants, cinemas and other public spaces will have to show vaccine passes. It is also reducing the limit on private gatherings to six people in the greater Seoul area, from 10 currently, and to eight from 12 for those residing outside of the capital, starting next Monday. The hospitalisation rate was rising rapidly led by severe cases of COVID-19, with the number of serious and critical patients at 752 as of Friday, KDCA said. South Korea has also confirmed three additional Omicron cases, bringing the total to nine after a fully vaccinated couple tested positive for the variant after travelling from Nigeria last week. To fend off the new variant, authorities on Friday announced a 10-day mandatory quarantine requirement for all inbound travellers for two weeks, halting exemptions given earlier to fully vaccinated people. Continue reading “S. Korea’s critical COVID cases at record high”
Gove: UK faces ‘deeply concerning situation’…..Omicron will be dominant variant by early next week, professor warns…….. People “very likely” to come in contact with Omicron holders, professor warns….
30% of cases in London are now Omicron as Govt advised to bring in tougher restrictions Boosters urged in face of Omicron spread
he UK’s top public health officials have advised ministers that “stringent national measures” need to be imposed by 18 December to avoid Covid hospitalisations surpassing last winter’s peak, according to reports. Sajid Javid, the health secretary, received a presentation from the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) on Tuesday warning that even if the new Omicro variant leads to less serious disease than Delta, it risks overwhelming the NHS with 5,000 people admitted to hospital a day, the Guardian reported. It comes as Communities Secretary Michael Gove said Omicron already makes up 30 per cent of new Covid cases in London.Department of Health figures show London’s infection rate have risen in all 32 boroughs of London – with 11 seeing a leap of over a third in a week. Omicron could overtake Delta as the dominant Covid-19 variant as early as next week, an expert has warned. Professor Jason Leitch, the National Clinical Director of the Scottish Government, told Sky News: “All four countries are managing this the way they think they should. It’s not any different. “There may be slight variations regionally around England but you’re pretty much where we are.” He said Omicron will be the dominant variant by the beginning of next week. “We’ve done this four times now… we’ve had four variants. Unfortunately two of them have come four weeks before Christmas. You couldn’t make this virus up, it’s like fiction.” Eleanor Riley, a professor of immunology and infectious disease, said Omicron is spreading so fast that people are “very likely” to meet someone infected with the Covid-19 variant unless they are “living the life of a hermit”. The University of Edinburgh academic also warned “a lot of people” could still end up in hospital even if the coronavirus mutation proves to provoke milder symptoms than the Delta variant. Prof Riley told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Omicron is spreading so quickly that, I think, unless you are living the life of a hermit, you are very likely to come across it in the next few weeks.“I don’t think anyone should be going around thinking they are not going to catch it, I think that situation has changed.” She added: “There is a huge ‘if’ about this, ‘is it milder?’. I think it is very dangerous to compare data from South Africa, say, to the UK.
EU drugs regulator says data supports vaccine boosters after three months
In major shift, EU says vaccine boosters should be considered for all adults
- EU agency says people above 40 years should be prioritised
- Boosters should be given at least six months after vaccination
- Guidance not binding but likely to inform changes to COVID pass
BRUSSELS, Nov 24 (Reuters) – The head of the European Union’s public health agency Andrea Ammon said on Wednesday that COVID-19 vaccine boosters should be considered for all adults, with priority for those above 40 years, in a major change to the agency’s guidance.Recommendations issued by the European Centre for Disease prevention and Control (ECDC) are not binding on EU governments but are used to make health policy decisions.”Booster doses should be considered for all adult individuals prioritising persons above 40 years of age,” Ammon said in a recorded statement, noting that boosters should be administered at least six months after completing the primary vaccine schedule. In its previous guidance issued in September alongside the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the ECDC said there was no urgent need for the administration of booster doses to fully vaccinated individuals in the general population, but suggested that additional doses should be considered for people with weakened immune systems and could be used as a precaution for older frail individuals.”Available evidence emerging from Israel and the UK shows a significant increase in protection against infection and severe disease following a booster dose in all age groups in the short term,” the ECDC said in a report published on Wednesday.It advised giving boosters to all adults with priority “for those aged 40 years and over”.FRAGMENTED EUROPEAmmon said that boosters will increase protection against infections caused by waning immunity and “could potentially reduce the transmission in the population and prevent additional hospitalisations and deaths”.She advised countries with low levels of vaccinations to speed up their rollouts and warned of high risks of a further spike in deaths and hospitalisations in Europe in December and January if the recommended measures were not introduced.The European Commission is expected to take the advice on boosters into consideration when proposing changes to the use of COVID-19 certificates later this week, officials said.”Boosters should be available for adults, with priority for people over 40 and vulnerable people,” the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Twitter after the ECDC’s report was published.Many EU countries have already begun giving booster doses to their populations but are using different criteria to select groups that are prioritised and using different intervals between primary vaccinations and boosters.Austria, which has this week reintroduced a lockdown amid a spike in cases, has decided to give boosters after four months, whereas in Italy the additional dose can be administered after five months.The ECDC also recommended countries apply minor restrictive measures, such as the use of face masks where physical distance is not possible and teleworking.It said that travel restrictions were unlikely to have a significant impact because the virus is already present in all EU countries.It also said that there was limited evidence of decreased transmission caused by the use of COVID-19 certificates to access restaurants, cinemas or museums – measures that about 20 EU countries are currently applying.
Pfizer: 3 vaccine doses neutralize Omicron
Preliminary laboratory studies demonstrate that three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine neutralize the Omicron variant, while two doses appear to be significantly less effective, Pfizer said in a statement on Wednesday. The ability of a vaccine to protect against infection can be examined in two ways: in the laboratory to see if antibodies found in the blood of vaccinated individuals neutralize the variant, or by collecting data from the field to show how many vaccinated individuals become infected compared with unvaccinated individuals. The company’s scientists compared the results from blood taken from individuals who had received the booster a month earlier with those from blood from vaccinees with only two shots. Pfizer said that the level of protection offered by the booster against Omicron resulted similarly to the one provided by two doses of the vaccine against other variants. The research showed that the immunity offered by the third dose against Omicron was 25-times higher than the immunity offered by two doses. According to the statement, two doses likely still offer some protection against severe disease. “Our preliminary, first dataset indicates that a third dose could still offer a sufficient level of protection from disease of any severity caused by the Omicron variant,” said BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin. “Although two doses of the vaccine may still offer protection against severe disease caused by the Omicron strain, it’s clear from these preliminary data that protection is improved with a third dose of our vaccine,” said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. “Ensuring as many people as possible are fully vaccinated with the first two dose series and a booster remains the best course of action to prevent the spread of COVID-19.” However, at least one researcher said that Pfizer’s statements about the vaccine’s effectiveness must be taken with caution. Continue reading “Pfizer: 3 vaccine doses neutralize Omicron”
Vaccine mandates ‘absolute last resort’, WHO Europe head says
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Mandatory vaccinations against the coronavirus are an “absolute last resort”, head of the World Health Organization’s Europe division, Hans Kluge, told reporters on Tuesday. “Mandates around vaccination are an absolute last resort and only applicable when all feasible options to improve vaccination uptake have been exhausted,” Kluge said.
France now has 25 Omicron Covid variant cases…. England has community transmission of Omicron variant, health minister says
PARIS, Dec 6 (Reuters) – Frace now has identified 25 positive cases of the Omicron COVID-19 virus variant, of which 21 were imported from people returning from Southern Africa, and four who were the result of local infection, Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Monday. Veran said the Omicron variant seems much more contagious than the Delta variant. He also said that France is aiming to start offering COVID-19 vaccination to all children aged 5 to 11 from December 20, provided health authorities give the go-ahead. Continue reading “France now has 25 Omicron Covid variant cases…. England has community transmission of Omicron variant, health minister says”
Next pandemic could be more lethal than COVID, Oxford vaccine creator says
LONDON (Reuters) – Future pandemics could be even more lethal than COVID-19 so the lessons learned from the pandemic must not be squandered, one of the creators of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine said. “This will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods,” Sarah Gilbert said in the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, the BBC reported. “The truth is, the next one could be worse. It could be more contagious, or more lethal, or both.” “We cannot allow a situation where we have gone through all we have gone through, and then find that the enormous economic losses we have sustained mean that there is still no funding for pandemic preparedness,” she said. “The advances we have made, and the knowledge we have gained, must not be lost.”
COVID cases found on Norwegian Cruise ship returning to New Orleans
this is the promotional video for the very cruise that returned with a boatload of infected passengers…. so much for their safety protocols
(Reuters) – A cruise ship set to dock in New Orleans with over 3,000 passengers has detected 10 cases of COVID-19 among its crew and guests, the Louisiana Department of Health said late on Saturday. The cruise ship Norwegian Breakaway, owned by Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd, departed New Orleans on a weeklong cruise on Nov. 28 and had stops in Belize, Honduras and Mexico, the health agency said. “NCL has been adhering to appropriate quarantine and isolation protocols,” the department said in a tweet. The ship is set to reach New Orleans on Sunday morning, according to its itinerary. Everyone on board will be tested for COVID-19 before leaving and will be provided with post-exposure and quarantine public health guidance by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). People who test positive for COVID-19 will either travel to their homes or self-isolate according to CDC guidelines, the health agency said. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
Omicron variant may have picked up a piece of common-cold virus
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 likely acquired at least one of its mutations by picking up a snippet of genetic material from another virus – possibly one that causes the common cold – present in the same infected cells, according to researchers. This genetic sequence does not appear in any earlier versions of the coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, but is ubiquitous in many other viruses including those that cause the common cold, and also in the human genome, researchers said. By inserting this particular snippet into itself, Omicron might be making itself look “more human,” which would help it evade attack by the human immune system, said Venky Soundararajan of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based data analytics firm nference, who led the study https://osf.io/f7txy posted on Thursday on the website OSF Preprints. This could mean the virus transmits more easily, while only causing mild or asymptomatic disease. Scientists do not yet know whether Omicron is more infectious than other variants, whether it causes more severe disease or whether it will overtake Delta as the most prevalent variant. Continue reading “Omicron variant may have picked up a piece of common-cold virus”
Ireland sets new COVID restrictions
Ireland will reintroduce some Covid-19 restrictions for the Christmas period following “very stark” advice from health officials. Restrictions will be in place from December 7 to January 9, including new limits on household gatherings, the country’s Taoiseach Micheal Martin said. It comes amid concern about increased socialising at Christmas and the threat posed by the new Omicron variant of coronavirus. In a national address on Friday, Mr Martin said: “The risks associated with proceeding into the Christmas period without some restrictions to reduce the volume of social contacts is just too high.” Among the measures taking effect from next Tuesday include strict social distancing requirements for bars and restaurants. Continue reading “Ireland sets new COVID restrictions”