That’s it from me, Samantha Lock, reporting from Sydney, Australia.
Thanks for following along – this blog is now closed. You can catch up with the latest coronavirus coverage on our new blog here.
Updated
Summary
- The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the Omicron variant is likely to spread internationally, posing a “very high” global risk where Covid-19 surges could have “severe consequences” in some areas.
-
UK to ramp up booster vaccinations and will halve the minimum gap in between jabs to three months aims with an aim to administer 500,000 jabs a day.
- The UK also announced that all adults would be eligible for a booster jab as part of the country’s response to the Omicron variant.
- UK records 42,583 new cases and further 35 deaths.
- France records a big jump in Covid cases after the health minister said the country had entered the fifth wave of the pandemic last week.
- Omicron has been detected in at least a dozen countries including Britain, Germany, France, Denmark, Israel, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia and South Africa.
- Sweden, Canada and Spain reported their first cases linked to the omicron variant.
- US president Joe Biden has said the Omicron variant “is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic”.
- President Xi Jinping said China would offer another 1 billion doses of Covid vaccines to African countries and would encourage Chinese companies to invest $10 billion in Africa over the next three years, Reuters reports.
- Poland, Ghana and Norway announced new restrictions on travel and socialising.
- The US says it doesn’t plan to introduce further travel restrictions.
As Europe braces for a possible outbreak of the new Omicron coronavirus variant, here is a quick visual refresh of where the continent stands in its fight against the coronavirus.
This updated map indicates incidence rates across Europe.
South Africa reported 2,273 new Covid-19 cases and 25 deaths in the past 24 hours, according to National Department of Health data.
A total of 21,302 tests were conducted with the 2,273 new cases representing a 10.7% positivity rate.
#COVID19 UPDATE: A total of 21,302 tests were conducted in the last 24hrs, with 2,273 new cases, which represents a 10.7% positivity rate. A further 25 #COVID19 related deaths have been reported, bringing total fatalities to 89,822 to date. See more here: https://t.co/YG74RzR3kH pic.twitter.com/I1c08llnaT
— NICD (@nicd_sa) November 29, 2021
President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines said he favours mandatory vaccination against Covid should the government’s Covid-19 task force recommend the policy.
“As a worker of government also in charge of the overall operations of the government, I may agree with the task force [Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases] if they decide to make it mandatory. It’s for public health,” Duterte said in a televised meeting with the National Task Force (NTF) against Covid-19 and medical experts in Malacañan Palace.
He acknowledged that a law is needed to mandate Filipinos to receive the Covid-19 vaccine shots, but reiterated that government can also use its police power to compel citizens to get vaccinated against Covid-19, the Philippine News Agency reports.
Updated
UK aims for 500,000 jabs a day in bid to outpace Omicron variant
Ministers are set to ramp up vaccinations to 3.5m a week as the minimum gap for boosters was cut to three months.
Confirmed Omicron cases rose to 11 in England and Scotland on Monday, with scientific advisers braced for hundreds more to be detected in the next week or so.
From Tuesday, masks will be mandatory on public transport including airports and stations and in shops – including hair salons and takeaways but not pubs or restaurants.
The NHS is set to confirm an expansion of the vaccine programme this week.
Read the full story here.
Hi everyone, it’s Samantha Lock here, ready to take you through all the Covid news.
Let’s start off with some updates out of Australia.
NSW and Victoria have reported their Covid data for the day. Victoria records 917 Covid cases and six deaths and NSW records 179 cases and three deaths.
There are five cases of the new Omicron confirmed in the country – all are in quarantine.
There are four in Sydney (after two more were confirmed late yesterday) and one in the Northern Territory.
All five people had been vaccinated.
Updated
Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease official of the US, told CNN on Monday it could not yet be predicted if the Omicron Covid-19 variant will become the dominant variant in the country.
Fauci also reiterated that the US was unlikely to impose further travel restrictions.
The mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, has urged New Yorkers to take up vaccine and booster offers and wear face masks, while claiming that there are currently zero cases of Omicron in the city.
We're closely monitoring the #OmicronVariant. While there are currently NO cases in our city, it's not a matter of if it gets here, it's a matter of when.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) November 29, 2021
Now's the time to double down on what works: vaccines, boosters and masks: https://t.co/cNSZQW3Wf1
Acccording to the New York Times, de Blasio said on Monday that he was emphasising the city health department’s standing advice that unvaccinated as well as vaccinated New Yorkers wear masks in public indoor settings, although he has has so far not made them mandatory in all indoor public spaces.
“We’re doubling down on it, basically,” de Blasio said. “It’s time to re-up that advisory and make it very, very clear this is a smart thing to do at this point.”
Masks are already required on mass transit and in hospitals and schools. The mayor said the rules for indoor dining would remain unchanged, with vaccinations required for guests, and that planned New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square would not be cancelled.
The Omicron Covid-19 variant could hurt global growth prospects while also pushing prices higher, rating agencies Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service said on Monday, after the World Health Organization said the variant carried a very high risk of infection surges.
“The Omicron variant poses risks to global growth and inflation, especially as it comes during a period of already stretched supply chains, elevated inflation and labour market shortages,” Elena Duggar, associate managing director at Moody’s, told Reuters.
The variant is also likely to hit demand during the upcoming holiday travel and spending season, according to Duggar.
“If the new variant affects global market risk appetite, it would cause further financial stress for debt issuers with large financing needs. For example, emerging market countries that rely on international market borrowing may face heightened refinancing risks,” she said.
Fitch Ratings said separately that it was too soon to incorporate the effects of the Omicron coronavirus variant into its economic growth forecasts until more is known about its transmissibility and severity.
“We currently believe that another large, synchronised global downturn, such as that seen in the first half of 2020, is highly unlikely but the rise in inflation will complicate macroeconomic responses if the new variant takes hold,” Fitch said.
More countries closed borders on Monday, casting a shadow over economic recovery from the two-year pandemic. Big airlines acted swiftly to protect their hubs by curbing passenger travel from southern Africa, fearing that a spread of the new variant would trigger restrictions from other destinations beyond the immediately affected regions, industry sources said.
The experience with past variants suggests that, even with some restrictions on international travel, the spread of the Omicron variant may be hard to stop, Duggar said, adding: “Should the new variant lead to another rising wave of Covid infections, the hardest-hit economies will be those with lower vaccination rates, higher dependence on tourism and lower capacity to offer fiscal and monetary policy support to offset the growth impact of the new wave of infections.”
Updated
Cuba will tighten coronavirus restrictions from 4 December for passengers from certain African countries over concerns about the Omicron coronavirus variant, the country’s government said on Monday.
This from Reuters:
Travellers arriving from South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Malawi, and Mozambique will be allowed to enter Cuba, the country’s health ministry said, but will be required to comply with multiple precautionary measures, including proof of vaccination, three PCR tests and a seven-day quarantine.
Travellers from other sub-Saharan African nations, as well as Belgium, Israel, Hong Kong, Egypt and Turkey will be required to take two PCR tests, the ministry said.
Concerns over the Omicron variant are flaring in Cuba just two weeks after the Caribbean island nation reopened its borders to international visitors.
Cuba, whose economy depends on tourism, eased entry requirements after inoculating most of its people with a Covid-19 vaccine developed domestically. New infections have dropped off sharply in recent weeks, as have deaths from Covid-19.
Fines of up to £6,400 for not wearing face covering in shops and on public transport in England
As part of targeted measures to prevent the spread of the new Covid-19 variant Omicron, from 4am on 30 November, people in England will be required by law to wear a face covering in shops, enclosed shopping centres, banks, post offices, and on public transport.
Some individuals will be exempt from doing so, such as children under the age of 11, shop and public transport staff, police officers and emergency responders, plus anyone with a reasonable excuse, such as a disability or physical or mental illness.
People will not be required to wear masks in hospitality settings, and photography studios are also exempt.
People who are not wearing a face covering where they have to can be fined in form of a fixed penalty notice and ordered to pay £200, rising to £400 for the second such offence, £800 for the third, up to a maximum of £6,400 for a sixth or subsequent fixed penalty notice.
Updated
In the 24 hours to Sunday, 22,304 first doses of Covid vaccine were administered in the UK, taking the total of first doses delivered to 50,941,327 as of 28 November, government figures show.
Some 46,341,057 second doses have been delivered as of Sunday, an increase of 29,445.
A combined total of 17,581,331 booster and third doses have also been given, a day-on-day rise of 450,480. Separate totals for booster and third doses are not available.
Updated
Summary
Here are the main developments we’ve reported on the blog so far today:
- The UK announced that all adults would be eligible for a booster jab as part of the country’s response to the omicron variant
- Poland, Ghana and Norway announced new restrictions on travel and socialising to tackle the spread of omicron
- Sweden, Canada and Spain reported their first cases linked to the omicron variant
- A big jump in coronavirus cases was recorded in France, after the health minister said the country had entered the fifth wave of the pandemic last week
- The US said it didn’t plan to introduce further travel restrictions, and advocated vaccinations, boosters and mask-wearing as preventative measures against the omicron variant, which has not yet been detected in the country
Thanks for tuning in today, I’m tapping out but the blog will stay open to monitor further coronavirus-related developments around the world under Jedidajah Otte’s watch.
Updated
Big jump in coronavirus cases recorded in France
France registered its biggest jump in coronavirus-related hospital admissions since the spring, according to official data.
Reuters reports:
The number of patients in intensive care units jumped by 117 to 1,749 people, the biggest increase since March-April, when the ICU number rose by more than 100 per day on several days.
The number of people in hospital with the virus jumped by 470 to 9,860, the biggest one-day increase since March 29. Compared with a week ago, the number of Covid-19 patients was up more than 18%, the biggest week-on-week increase this year.
The French health minister last week said that France has entered a fifth wave of the pandemic. France is registering nearly 30,000 new cases a day on average.
Updated
Canadian province of Quebec reports first omicron case
The Quebecois health minister has reported the discovery of a first case of the omicron variant, Reuters reports.
Sweden reports first omicron case
One case of the Omicron coronavirus variant has been detected in Sweden, the Public Health Agency said on Monday.
Reuters reports:
The case was detected in a test taken a little over a week ago from a person who had travelled from South Africa, the agency said in a statement.
Updated
US President Joe Biden has said the omicron variant “is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic”.
The best protection is to get vaccinated and receive a booster when eligible, he said, urging all Americans to do so as quickly as possible.
Although no cases of the omicron variant have yet been found in the US, he said: “Sooner or later, we are going to see new cases of this new variant here in the United States and we’re going to have to face this new threat just as we have faced the ones that came before it.”
In terms of preventative measures, he encouraged Americans to wear masks indoors and in public places, but said that further travel bans were unlikely.
Updated
US President Joe Biden is poised to speak on plans to tackle the threat of the omicron variant.
I’ll keep you updated with key messages, but you can follow the detail on our US as it happens:
Updated
Spain detects first omicron case
Spain has detected its first case of the omicron variant of the coronavirus in a 51-year-old man who arrived from South Africa on Sunday after a layover in Amsterdam, according to Madrid’s regional health authorities.
Reuters reports:
The microbiology unit at Madrid’s Gregorio Maranon hospital, which sequenced and confirmed the new variant, added in a separate tweet that the patient was in fair condition with light symptoms.
Updated
Ghana’s government is ordering access to beaches, restaurants, night clubs and stadiums be limited to people who have been vaccinated against Covid, as part of its efforts to fight the spread of the virus, AP reports.
While the Omicron variant has not yet been identified in the west African country, the government health service is “taking steps to protect the country towards the Christmas season,” Ghana’s health service director-general Patrick Kuma-Aboagye said.
At least 5.45 million people of Ghana’s population of 31 million have received at least one vaccine dose. Vaccines being administered in Ghana include AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson.
Ghana’s land borders are currently closed and air travellers are required to have a PCR test within 72 hours of arrival and antigen tests upon arrival.
The country aims to administer 20 million doses of vaccines by the end of 2021, Kuma-Aboagye said in a statement issued on Sunday.
“Among Covid-19 deaths at the Ghana Infectious Diseases Center, 12.5% of the deaths were persons who had been vaccinated (they also had severe underlying medical conditions). The rest, 87.5%, hadn’t been vaccinated,” he said.
Ghana has recorded more than 1,209 deaths and 130,920 cases of Covid-19.
UK records 42,583 new cases and further 35 deaths
The UK has reported another 42,583 Covid cases and a further 35 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, according to the latest data from the government’s coronavirus dashboard.
That is compared to 37,681 infections and 51 fatalities reported in the 24 hours prior.
The Omicron variant is highly transmissible and requires “urgent action,” G7 health ministers said on Monday, praising South Africa’s “exemplary work” for both detecting the strain and alerting others.
“The global community is faced with the threat of a new, at a first evaluation, highly transmissible variant of Covid-19, which requires urgent action,” the health ministers said in a statement following an emergency meeting, adding they would work together to monitor Omicron.
Underlining the “strategic relevance of ensuring access to vaccines”, they pledged to hold to their donation commitments, as well as to provide support to research and development.
At the same time, they will tackle “vaccine misinformation”, something that has in parts of the world led to resistance against inoculation.
A new meeting will be held in December, they said, committing to work closely together with the World Health Organization and international partners to share information on Omicron.
Scientists in South Africa said they had last week detected the new variant with at least 10 mutations, compared with three for Beta or two for Delta - the variant that hit the global recovery and sent millions worldwide back into lockdown earlier this year.
Omicron has sparked a frenzy of travel restrictions across the world, with a growing list of countries having already imposed travel curbs on southern Africa, including Qatar, the US, the UK, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Netherlands.
With new travel restrictions coming into effect in England from 4am on Tuesday to tackle the spread of the Omicron variant, my colleague Nazia Parveen explains what this means for travellers arriving in the country:
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has identified two further cases of Covid-19 with mutations consistent with Omicron in England, officials have announced.
The two cases are in addition to the previous three confirmed cases of the Sars-CoV-2 variant known as B.1.1.529 – aka the Omicron variant – on 27 and 28 November. The total number of confirmed cases in England is now five.
The individuals that have tested positive are not connected to each other and are not linked to the previously confirmed cases. Both have links to travel to southern Africa. One case is located in Camden, north London and one case is located in Wandsworth, south London.
Both individuals and their households had been told to self-isolate, the UKHSA said. It was carrying out targeted testing at locations where the positive cases were likely to be infectious.
Good afternoon from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next hour while Rachel takes a break. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
JCVI briefing on the booster programme ramp up
The JCVI briefing has now wrapped up.
Here’s a reminder of the key points:
- All adults aged 18-39 are now eligible for a booster
- People who are immunosuppressed are eligible for a fourth dose
- A second dose will now be available for children aged 12-15
- Boosters will be given three months after the second dose
- The booster programme is expected to improve the efficacy of the jabs against omicron
Updated
Lim said all the JCVI advice given today applies to pregnant women.
He added that “there is a time to move quickly and a time to move more cautiously” on the vaccine programme, and the current moment calls for swifter-decision making.
Raine said a study of the side effects of the vaccine in those aged under 18 had shown there are “no new safety issues”.
She said: “Our message to people aged 12-15 is that it is safe to have a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine and if you’re called to receive your second dose, please go and take that offer.
“It will ensure that you’re further protected from Covid-19.”
The UK’s health secretary, Sajid Javid, is about to speak in the House of Commons. You can follow the discussion on our UK blog:
Updated
Lim said that there is evidence that “the vaccines we have at the moment may be less good against omicron than the currently circulating delta variant”, since viruses that develop variants increase “the likelihood of a mismatch”.
One way of reducing this impact is to increase the strength of the immune response provided by the current vaccine. Since evidence suggests that the strongest response comes from the booster, it is expected to provide “extra protection” against omicron.
He added that the pre-booster interval must absolutely not be shorter than three months, which would be “too early”.
The NHS is working through the updated guidance and will set out how it will be operationalised soon, said Van Tam.
He added that the important message from the NHS is that it “understands the real urgency of this” and is “up for the task” but will open bookings in an orderly way to prevent younger people from receiving their boosters ahead of more vulnerable and older adults.
All adults should be given booster jabs, says Covid vaccine adviser Prof Wei Shen Lim
All adults should be given a booster jab from three months after receiving their second dose, while those who are immunocompromised should receive a fourth jab, said Lim.
This is an increase from the present interval of six months, and an extension of the eligibility for those aged under 40.
Children aged 12 to 15 will also be invited for a second dose three months after their first.
More details to follow
Updated
Message to people aged 12 to 15 is that “it’s safe to receive the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine”, said chief medicines regulator Dr June Raine.
Raine added that there is no evidence so far that the vaccines aren’t effective against the omicron variant.
She added that adults should be assured of the safety of the booster programme.
Updated
Scientists will need three weeks to understand the implications of the new variant
Speaking at the JCVI press conference, England’s deputy chief medical officer Prof Jonathan Van Tam said:
“Variants have always been inevitable and we’ve seen many come and the names include alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and there are others. When a variant appears it always causes initial concern because at that point we don’t know how it will behave and in particular we don’t know how our vaccines will hold up against that variant.
“At some points, we’ve always said it, we’re going to get a variant that gives us heightened concern. We’re at that moment with omicron.
“I want to emphasise the very high degree of uncertainty in our knowledge.
“That’s going to change rapidly as scientists mobilise on this over the next three weeks. but everyone needs to give us time to assemble that data.”
He said scientists were certain of several features of the variant:
“The omicron variant has many mutations, some we know something about and others are new.
“The number of mutations already on first principles makes us worry about a possible effect on vaccine effectiveness.”
Uncertainties include the transferability of the virus and the severity of the disease it causes, he said.
He added: “I do not want people to panic at this stage.
“The biggest effects are likely to be in preventing infections and hopefully smaller effects on preventing severe disease.”
Updated
A press conference in the UK is starting now on the vaccination policy - more to follow.
President Xi Jinping on Monday said China would offer another 1 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines to African countries and would encourage Chinese companies to invest no less than $10 billion (£7.5 billion) in Africa over the next three years, Reuters reports.
Anthony Fauci, the leading Covid-19 adviser in the US, said that instead of introducing restrictions, Americans will be urged to get vaccinated and receive booster shots to address concerns over the possible spread of omicron.
Fauci said that there were as yet still no cases of the variant identified in the US but that it was “inevitable” that it would make its way into the country eventually, Associated Press reports.
Speaking on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Fauci said scientists hope to know in the next week or two how well the existing Covid-19 vaccines protect against the variant, and how dangerous it is compared to earlier strains.
“We really don’t know,” Fauci said, calling speculation “premature.”
Biden is set to speak later on Monday about the urgency of getting vaccinated against Covid-19 to protect against variants, especially as roughly 80 million Americans aged 5 and up haven’t yet received a shot. But Biden was not expected to announce any new virus-related restrictions, beyond last week’s move to restrict travel from South Africa and seven other countries in the region, effective Monday.
Updated
A senior EU official has told Reuters that an EU summit on the coronavirus situation is likely at the end of this week or possibly the week after.
The official, who declined to be named, said a decision could come in the coming hours or on Tuesday. EU leaders would seek a common approach on various issues, including the question of booster vaccine doses, the official said.
Updated
South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa has urged other countries to resist “unjustified and unscientific” Covid-19 travel restrictions that mostly hurt developing nations.
Reuters reports Ramaphosa’s speech at the opening of the China-Africa Summit in Dakar:
“We need to resist unjustified and unscientific travel restrictions that are damaging the economies and sectors of the economies that rely on travel.
“There is a world order where a country’s wealth is the difference between sickness and health.”
Updated
Russia has said it would be ready to provide booster shots to protect against the Omicron coronavirus variant if needed.
Reuters reports comments from Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which markets the vaccine overseas: “Gamaleya Institute believes Sputnik V and Light will neutralize Omicron as they have highest efficacy versus other mutations.
“In unlikely case a modification is needed, we will provide several hundred million of Sputnik Omicron boosters by 20 February 2022.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier in the day: “We see that the reaction on markets is emotional, it is not based on scientific evidence because there is none yet. The whole world is currently trying to figure out how dangerous it is.”
Russia was quick to develop its two-dose Sputnik V vaccine last year and has also deployed a one-shot Sputnik Light vaccine, both of which have it says demonstrated high efficacy in trials, but are still awaiting WHO approval.
Updated
More from the interview on CNBC from Pfizer’s chief exec:
Pfizer now expects to manufacture 80m treatment courses of its experimental Covid-19 antiviral drug, up from a forecast of 50m by the end of next year made earlier in the month.
Reuters reports that Bourla said he was confident that the drug, with the brand name Paxlovid, would be unaffected by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, adding that the company would know more details about the new variant in the next few weeks.
Pfizer applied for emergency authorization of Paxlovid last week after reporting data showing that it was 89% effective at preventing hospitalisation or death in at-risk people.
Updated
Poland announces restrictions
The Polish government has announced the following restrictions to come into force between 1-17 December:
- Restaurants, cinemas and some other places to be reduced to 50% capacity.
- Weddings limited to 100 vaccinated people, no limits on those with jabs.
- 14-day quarantine for all those travelling from outside the Schengen zone.
- Longer quarantine for those returning from some African countries.
Updated
There’s another CNBC interview with a vaccine manufacturer, this time we’re hearing from Pfizer’s chief exec, Albert Bourla.
Reuters reports that on Friday Pfizer made a new template to develop an Omicron vaccine.
Updated
UK prime minister Boris Johnson has been urged to introduce far tougher travel restrictions on travellers from abroad by the first ministers of Scotland and Wales, Severin Carrell reports.
Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland, and Mark Drakeford, the Welsh first minister, also urged Johnson to host an urgent meeting of Cobra, the UK government’s emergency planning committee, to agree a common approach.
Sturgeon said she and Drakeford believed there was a clear need to increase quarantine times and precautionary testing for new arrivals to prevent the variant getting a hold in the UK.
Speaking at an emergency briefing in Edinburgh, Sturgeon said all travellers from abroad should quarantine for eight days and undergo a PCR test on the eighth day, as well as on day two, as is already required.
Updated
The chief executive of Moderna, Stephane Bancel, said data on the efficacy of the vaccine against the newest variant could be available within two to six weeks but that it will be months before Omicron-specific jabs can be shipped.
Speaking in a CNBC interview reported by Reuters, Bancel added that this variant is understood to be highly infectious, but that current measures that countries are taking will be effective in slowing down its spread.
Updated
Poland to announce new restrictions
Poland will announce new restrictions later today to protect the country against the Omicron variant, its prime minister said.
“We will present some additional restrictions today so that it is possible to protect ourselves better from those countries where this virus is,” Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference reported bby Reuters.
AFP has just shared its regular tally of global coronavirus cases, compiled from official sources.
The new figures show that coronavirus has killed at least 5,197,718 people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019. At least 260,817,750 cases of coronavirus have been registered. On Sunday, 4,760 new deaths and 382,619 new cases were recorded worldwide.
The report notes that the World Health Organization estimates that the pandemic’s overall toll could be two to three times higher than official records, due to the excess mortality that is directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19. A large number of the less severe or asymptomatic cases also remain undetected, despite intensified testing in many countries
The country breakdowns are as follows:
Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were Russia with 1,209 new deaths, followed by Ukraine with 297 and India with 236. The United States is the worst-affected country with 776,639 deaths from 48,229,273 cases.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 614,278 deaths from 22,080,906 cases, India with 468,790 deaths from 34,580,832 cases, Mexico with 293,897 deaths from 3,883,842 cases, and Russia with 273,964 deaths from 9,604,233 cases.
The country with the highest number of deaths compared to its population is Peru with 610 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Bulgaria with 404, Bosnia-Herzegovina with 380, Montenegro with 364, Republic of North Macedonia with 362, Hungary with 351 and Czech Republic with 307.
Latin America and the Caribbean overall has 1,539,738 deaths from 46,642,178 cases, Europe 1,514,834 deaths from 83,767,638 infections, and Asia 896,740 deaths from 57,159,434 cases.
The US and Canada has reported 806,268 deaths from 50,014,587 cases, Africa 222,568 deaths from 8,638,847 cases, Middle East 214,292 deaths from 14,288,635 cases, and Oceania 3,278 deaths from 306,439 cases.
Updated
South Africa has described the decision of fellow African nations to impose travel bans over the new Omicron varient as “regrettable … (and) sad”, following a rush by wealthy countries to shut their borders to the nation that first detected the strain.
AFP reports that Angola, Mauritius, Rwanda and the Seychelles have halted flights from South Africa in a bid to shield themselves from Omicron.
The interview cited foreign ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela, who said:
“It is quite regrettable, very unfortunate, and I will even say sad, to be talking about travel restrictions imposed by a fellow African country
“What I don’t understand is that some of these African countries that are doing this, know the struggles (that) as a continent we have, where European countries will take this decision and impose travel bans.”
Moyela said South Africa had recently made “substantial donations” of vaccines to some of the countries that were now imposing flight bans.
“When a fellow African country does that, especially in the context where most of these countries are beneficiaries … it doesn’t make sense,” he told an online news conference organised by the health ministry.
“That’s why we think these decision must be reversed immediately.”
Updated
New restrictions in Norway
A snap from Reuters states that Norway’s government is poised to introduce measures to curb the spread of Omicron. More to follow.
The Dutch police have arrested a married couple who fled a quarantine hotel to get a flight out of the country, despite at least one of them testing positive for Covid on arrival in the Netherlands from South Africa, where the new Omicron variant was first identified, Daniel Boffey writes.
The Portuguese woman and Spanish man were apprehended in their seats moments before their plane was scheduled to leave for Spain from Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport on Sunday evening.
A spokesperson for the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, a national police force, said the couple had been taken off the plane “almost silently and without resistance”.
Updated
As the Covid-19 pandemic raged, New Zealanders and Australians developed the world’s highest levels of trust in scientists, newly released survey data has found – and those trust levels soared as the global crisis evolved.
The Wellcome Global Monitor, conducted by Gallup, surveyed 119,000 people across 113 countries. It found 62% of the two countries’ citizens said they trusted scientists “a lot”, compared with a global average of 41%. While trust in scientists had increased around the world since 2018, the portion who said they trusted scientists a lot jumped 15 percentage points in Australia and New Zealand, compared with nine points elsewhere. In 2018, western Europe had had the highest levels of trust in scientists, but they were overtaken in the past two years.
Particularly during the first year of the pandemic, Australia and New Zealand were lauded for the success of their zero-Covid strategies, which closely matched with public health experts’ advice. The survey – which grouped the two countries together, with no national breakdown – was completed before the recent Delta outbreaks, and reflects a strong sense that the two governments were in step with the science: they were by far the most likely to believe that their governments were making their decisions based on scientific advice. Sixty-two per cent said their governments were basing decisions on science – compared with just 25% in North America, and 43% in western Europe.
Read more of Tess McClure’s report from Christchurch here: Trust in scientists soared in Australia and New Zealand during Covid pandemic, poll finds
Updated
Today so far
- The Omicron variant is likely to spread internationally, posing a “very high” global risk where Covid-19 surges could have “severe consequences” in some areas, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said this morning.
- “Omicron has an unprecedented number of spike mutations, some of which are concerning for their potential impact on the trajectory of the pandemic,” the WHO said. “The overall global risk related to the new variant of concern Omicron is assessed as very high.”
- Omicron has been detected in at least a dozen countries including Britain, Germany, France, Denmark, Israel, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia and South Africa.
- Portugal has detected 13 cases of the new Omicron coronavirus variant – all related to players and staff members of the Lisbon football team Belenenses. Defender Cafu Phete tested positive for Covid-19 after returning to Portugal last week from international duty in South Africa.
- Six cases of Omicron have been identified in Scotland – four in Lanarkshire and two in Glasgow and Clyde. Scotland’s deputy first minister John Swinney said that some of the Omicron variant cases identified in Scotland have no travel history, which suggests there is a degree of community transmission.
- Pupils and staff at a school in Essex in England are being tested for Covid after it was linked to one of England’s three cases. Junior health minister Edward Argar said that number was sure to increase, saying: “I would expect that to rise. We don’t know by what speed, or by what numbers. What we’re doing is trying to slow it down, but we can’t we can’t stop it.” Asked if the government might tighten up the rules even further in the next three weeks, he said: “It’s not something I’m anticipating.”
- G7 health ministers are to hold an emergency meeting on Monday on the new Omicron Covid-19 strain, as experts race to understand what the variant means for the fight to end the pandemic.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) is opening a long-planned special session of member states to discuss ways to strengthen the global fight against pandemics such as the coronavirus, just as the new omicron variant has sparked immediate concerns worldwide. Germany’s Angela Merkel said the WHO required reliable financing with higher donations from member states, and she backed it launching negotiations for a binding international accord on preventing pandemics.
- Authorities in France are waiting for laboratory confirmation of eight suspected cases of the new variant of the coronavirus, involving people who traveled recently to southern Africa.
- Prof Sir Mark Walport, who is a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) advising the UK government, said there was “good cause to be concerned” about Omicron.
- In the UK, Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said there was “no distinction” between people sitting in pubs, trains or hospitals when it came to wearing masks indoors. She has called for face coverings to be worn in hospitality venues in England, as well as on public transport and in shops.
- Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown said that 100 million vaccines would be “wasted” by western countries by the end of the year. “If you waste a vaccine, you’re actually putting a life at risk.”
- Military police in the Netherlands say they have arrested a married couple who left a hotel where they were in quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19 and were attempting to flee the country.
- The top US infectious disease official, Dr Anthony Fauci, has told president Joe Biden it will take about two weeks to have definitive information on the new variant and has warned the US has “the potential to go into a fifth wave” of coronavirus infections.
- Singapore and Malaysiahave re-opened one of the world’s busiest land borders, allowing vaccinated travellers to make the crossing after nearly two years of closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is a busy day for coronavirus news. Andrew Sparrow is carrying the UK lines on a combined live politics and Covid blog. Rachel Hall will be here shortly to take over and bring you the latest global coronavirus developments.
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A quick note from Reuters here. Health officials have said it is too early to tell how many Covid-19 deaths in South Africa are driven by the new Omicron variant.
“We collect information on all the Covid-19 admissions. However, we don’t do genomic typing on every patient diagnosed so we don’t know whether they have Delta variant or Omicron variant,” Waasila Jassat of South Africa’s National Institute of Communicable Diseases told reporters.
There’s been a development with the Omicron variant case confirmed in Essex in England. The local council have stated that “Following further contact tracing of the known Omicron Covid-19 case in Brentwood, it has been confirmed that there is a link to Larchwood Primary school based in Pilgrims Hatch.”
They have confirmed that they are “making specialist testing available for all pupils and school staff and confirming arrangements for remote learning for one class. We appreciate that this is an unsettling time for parents, pupils and the school community but we take the time to remind everyone that this is a precautionary measure.”
Andrew Sparrow will have more on that in due course on our UK live Covid and politics blog, which you can find here:
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The newly discovered Omicron variant is likely to fuel a surge in South Africa’s coronavirus cases that could see daily infections treble this week, a top epidemiologist has warned.
Agence France-Presse states that health monitors reported over 2,800 infections on Sunday, up from a daily average of 500 in the previous week and 275 the week before.
“We can expect that higher transmissibility is likely and so we are going to get more cases quickly,” Dr Salim Abdool Karim said at an online health ministry press briefing.
“I am expecting we will top over 10,000 cases by the end of the week per day (and) pressure on hospitals within the next two, three weeks.
“Even if Omicron is not clinically worse, and certainly the anecdotes don’t raise any red flags just yet … we are going to see (rising cases) in all likelihood because of the rapidity of transmission,” Karim said.
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Germany’s Angela Merkel said on Monday the World Health Organization (WHO) required reliable financing with higher donations from member states, and she backed it launching negotiations for a binding international accord on preventing pandemics.
Reuters reports Merkel was addressing health ministers at the start of a WHO special assembly after its 194 member states reached a tentative consensus to negotiate a future agreement on preventing pandemics, bridging the gap between sides led by the European Union and US, diplomats said on Sunday.
“As we speak, the global community is faced with the threat of a new, highly transmissible variant of Covid-19, Omicron,” Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, told the three-day talks that are expected to conclude on Wednesday with the adoption of the draft resolution on launching negotiations.
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Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown said that 100 million vaccines would be “wasted” by western countries by the end of the year.
Brown, who is ambassador for global health financing at the World Health Organisation, told Sky News: “We’ve got to get vaccines out to the rest of the world. There are probably about 100m vaccines in the west that will be wasted by the end of the year because they’re not going to be used. And I think people hate waste and hate the idea that vaccines will pass the expiry date and not be used.”
On the issue of richer nations shipping vaccine “leftovers” when they are very close to their expiry date, he added: “The better way is to think look, we’re producing soon 2bn vaccines a month across the world.”
PA Media quotes him saying: “There’s going to be no difficulty about countries being able to get hold of them if they’re rich enough to be able to afford them over the next few months.
“If we have excess supply, and we know we’re not going to use them in the next few months, then we should get them out as quickly as possible. If you waste a vaccine, you’re actually putting a life at risk.”
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A quick snap from Reuters that Russia’s coronavirus task force has said it will soon announce new restrictions related to the Omicron variant of Covid-19.
With the emergence of the Omicron variant, vaccine equity has very much been in focus again. Today, the Council of Global Unions (CGU), who represent over 200 million workers, are pushing once more over vaccine patents. In a campaign statement released this morning, they say:
It has been nearly two years since the outbreak of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Workers have stepped up, putting themselves at risk to safeguard people’s lives, livelihoods, and the global economy, and driven outstanding advances in science and medicine with the rapid development of Covid-19 tests, treatments, drugs, medical devices, personal protective equipment and, most importantly, vaccines.
Despite the commitment of workers, a handful of governments are sabotaging global recovery by blocking the sharing of these medical advances, costing more lives and putting workers and communities at further risk. Immediate collective action is needed to ensure equal and universal access to Covid-19 vaccines and wider health products and technologies.
The international trade union movement calls on all governments, in particular, the United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland, along with the European Commission, to take all actions needed to make Covid-19 vaccines available for all, and to support the temporary and targeted ‘Trips waiver’ proposed by South Africa and India at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), tackling a key obstacle to protecting workers and communities around the world as the coronavirus continues to impact. The WTO system envisages suspending intellectual property rules in exceptional circumstances: the pandemic is clearly an exceptional circumstance.
In a similar vein, nursing unions in 28 countries have filed a formal appeal with the United Nations over the refusal of the UK, EU and others to temporarily waive patents for Covid vaccines, saying this has cost huge numbers of lives in developing nations.
A quick snap from Associated Press that French authorities are waiting for laboratory confirmation of eight suspected cases of the new variant of the coronavirus, involving people who traveled recently to southern Africa.
Testing already conducted determined that the travellers were positive for the virus but not for one of its previous variants. Follow-up genetic testing was being done to see if they were infected with the new omicron variant.
The Health Ministry said last night that results could take several days. If confirmed, they would be France’s first known cases of the omicron variant.
Russia has reported 33,860 new coronavirus cases, and 1,209 further official deaths. Both those figures continue the gradual decline that has been seen over the last few weeks since the country had an enforced week’s leave from work at the beginning of the month.
Belenenses player had returned to Portugal after international duty in South Africa
A little more detail here on those Omicron variant cases detected in the Portuguese football team Belenenses. Defender Cafu Phete tested positive for Covid-19 after returning to Portugal last week from international duty in South Africa.
Reuters report that the new variant was found after Belenenses played a Primeira Liga match against Benfica on Saturday.
The game started with only nine Belenenses players on the pitch because the rest of their squad were isolating and only seven returned to the field after halftime. The match was abandoned two minutes into the second half with Benfica leading 7-0.
“We’re all in isolation except for the youth team that didn’t play on Saturday, 44 people are in isolation at home,” a club spokesman said on Monday.
“Two or three players and two or three staff have symptoms, but nothing too serious, the rest are asymptomatic. Everyone is waiting to repeat the tests, as soon as the health authority authorises it,” he added.
Andrew Sparrow has launched our UK politics live blog for today, which is likely to be dominated by developments related to the outbreak of the Omicron variant in England and Scotland. You can follow that here.
I’ll be continuing here with the latest global coronavirus news – and the very top lines from the UK if there are significant further developments. Here’s an updated map of the latest case incidence in Europe.
The World Health Organization is opening a long-planned special session of member states to discuss ways to strengthen the global fight against pandemics such as the coronavirus, just as the new omicron variant has sparked immediate concerns worldwide.
In the wake of diplomatic wrangling, a draft resolution at the special World Health Assembly stops short of calling for work toward specifically establishing a “pandemic treaty” or “legally binding instrument” sought by some, which could beef up the international response when – not if – a new pandemic erupts.
European Union member states and others had sought language calling for work toward a treaty, but the US and a few other countries countered that the substance of any accord should be worked out first before any such document is given a name. A “treaty” would suggest a legally binding agreement that would require ratification – and would likely incur domestic political haggling in some countries.
Associated Press reports from Geneva that the draft text makes no reference to the word “treaty” but, among other things, calls for the creation of an “intergovernmental negotiating body” among WHO member states to work out a possible deal to improve pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
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Prof Sir Mark Walport, who is a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) advising the UK government, told Sky News there was “good cause to be concerned” about Omicron.
He said it “makes sense to try and hold it back” though it will be “impossible to stop it spreading around the world if it is much more infectious than the Delta variant”.
PA Media quotes him saying the most important thing people in the UK could do was to have vaccines and take measures such as wearing masks.
Asked if people should be told to wear masks in pubs and restaurants, he said: “If you are in a small, poorly ventilated enclosed space, it makes sense to wear a mask. Clearly when you are drinking and eating it’s not possible to do that but if you’re moving around, then absolutely.
“We know that infection happens in closed spaces indoors and of course, as it gets colder, people are more likely to be indoors and they’re less likely to have the windows open. So if you’re going to wear masks in shops, it makes sense to wear them in other places as well.”
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Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of council at the British Medical Association, called for hospitality staff to be required to wear masks when servicing customers.
He told Good Morning Britain: “What we believe is that there should be mask-wearing in all settings which are enclosed and indoors.
“Now clearly, that doesn’t apply to people who are eating out, but it should apply to staff, for example, in restaurants and bars so that when you are close to a customer, when you’re in direct line of a customer, maybe a few feet away, and you’re speaking perhaps loudly, you reduce the chance of infecting others.
PA Media quotes him saying: “This isn’t just about the public, it’s also about staff and employers as well, because if they have staff who become infected, staff who are ill and self-isolating, that will also affect the economy. So there is a reason for doing this for both customers and employers.”
On the Omicron cases in Scotland, Dr Nagpaul added: “The difficulty here is we’re not sure at the moment exactly how infectious, transmissible and how much the new variant is going to be resistant to the vaccine, if at all. So as this work is being done, the right thing to do is to be cautious, which is what the government is doing.”
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Labour: people should wear masks in hospitality settings in England
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said there was “no distinction” between people sitting in pubs, trains or hospitals when it came to wearing masks indoors.
She has called for face coverings to be worn in hospitality venues in England, as well as on public transport and in shops.
PA Media quote Rayner telling Sky News: “We think that in hospitality settings that people should be wearing a mask. I got the train here yesterday evening and it was absolutely rammed, you couldn’t even stand up, it was so full, and nobody, very few people, were wearing a mask on that train.
“It’s so important that people wear masks when they’re indoors, in arenas where they’re meeting people and... mixing in large numbers. People should be wearing their masks.”
On wearing masks in pubs, she said: “I think people should... especially if you’re moving around the pub, people should be wearing their masks in hospitality settings. If you’re (in) an indoor setting, there’s no distinction between a pub, sitting in a pub, or sitting on a train, or sitting in a hospital. It’s still a venue that’s indoors and we should be taking the necessary measures to protect people around us.”
Swinney: 'degree of community transmission' suggested in Scotland cases
Scotland’s deputy first minister John Swinney said that some of the Omicron variant cases identified in Scotland have no travel history, which suggests there is a degree of community transmission.
PA Media quotes him telling BBC Good Morning Scotland: “We obviously have some travel history on some of the cases, I don’t have all of that detail available to me at this stage, but on some of the cases we are aware that there is no travel history involved on some of the cases.
“So what that tells us is that there must be a degree of community transmission of this particular strain of the virus in the absence of direct travel connection for some of the cases in the southern African area.
“So that obviously opens up further challenges for us in terms of interrupting the spread of this particular strain of the virus and that will be the focus of the contact tracing operation that is under way already.”
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If you are feeling anxious about the prospects for the impact of the Omicron variant, then there was a slightly reassuring message over vaccine timelines from Prof Anthony Harnden in the UK this morning. He is deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
PA Media quotes him saying to the BBC Breakfast programme that if Omicron has vaccine escape and “turns out to have a transmission advantage, then it would be sensible to have a new vaccine”.
He added: “The mRNA vaccines, that’s the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines, are relatively easy to tweak and the pharmaceutical companies that produce those vaccines have indicated that they may be able to get a variant vaccine within 100 days.”
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Prof Greg Towers, from the Division of Infection and Immunity at University College London, said people in the UK needed to adhere to “easier” measures to avoid potential future lockdowns.
PA Media quotes him telling Times Radio this morning: “If we don’t wear masks, and if we ignore social distancing rules, and if we just pretend it’s all over, then what’s going to happen is we’ll get another big wave of infection, and we’ll get put into lockdown again, so if we don’t want lockdown we’ve got to try and stop the spread by easier means like mask-wearing and social distancing.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t a situation of saying when is this going to be over? When are we going to get back to normal? I think we’re going to have to learn to live with this virus and that might mean taking action like having lockdowns if we get surges of infection.
“So basically, we’re looking at behaving in such a way that we suppress waves of infection when they’re on their way – and that I hope will be through vaccination.
“Even if this virus is good at escaping the first vaccine, the vaccine can be modified to make one that is more specific to these new variants.
“And so there are answers to all this, but we just have to keep managing it. We have to not say: ‘When is this going to be over?’ We just have to learn to say: ‘I’m going to wear a mask today on the tube, because that will protect my fellow passengers and reduce the chance of us going into lockdown again’.”
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Dutch police arrest couple trying to flee quarantine for Spain
Dutch military police say they have arrested a married couple who left a hotel where they were in quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19 and were attempting to flee the country.
The couple were arrested “in an airplane that was about to depart”, the police force, known as the Marechaussee, said in a statement. It was unclear whether they had tested positive for the new Omicron coronavirus variant.
The Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool reported that the couple, a Spanish man and Portuguese woman, were attempting to fly to Spain.
Reuters note that dozens of passengers who tested positive for Covid-19 after arriving on two flights from South Africa on Friday were being kept in quarantine at a hotel near Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.
The Marechaussee statement said the pair, whose names were not released, had been turned over to health authorities.
Portugal has detected 13 cases of the new Omicron coronavirus variant – all related to players and staff members of the Lisbon football team Belenenses, the health authority DGS said, according to Reuters.
Their most recent game was on Saturday, a Lisbon derby match against Benfica, which sounds like it was absolute chaos due to the Covid outbreak in their ranks.
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JCVI deputy chair: 'inevitably everybody will be offered a booster' in the UK
Prof Anthony Harnden, deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in the UK, has told BBC Breakfast there were two strategies to deal with the variant.
“Either we raise the immunity in the population or we find a matched vaccine,” he said.
“And it’s going to be quite a while before we can get a matched vaccine so it’s sensible to increase the immunity in the population and that will be done by actually encouraging those that are unvaccinated so far to get vaccinated, that is absolutely imperative, but also to make sure that we boost the most vulnerable in order.”
PA Media quote him saying “Inevitably everybody will be offered a booster but what we want to do is make sure that it’s done in a sensible order so that those that are most vulnerable for this infection can get boosted and their natural immunity levels can go up.”
He said the JCVI was looking at reducing the interval between second and booster doses and increasing the age range of who is eligible.
He said it was “really important that we get the immunity levels in the population high” in case the Omicron variant was more transmissible or protection from vaccines was reduced.
WHO: Omicron variant poses 'very high' global risk, mutations are 'concerning'
The Omicron variant is likely to spread internationally, posing a “very high” global risk where Covid-19 surges could have “severe consequences” in some areas, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said this morning.
The UN agency, in technical advice to its 194 member states, urged them to accelerate vaccination of high-priority groups and to “ensure mitigation plans are in place” to maintain essential health services.
“Omicron has an unprecedented number of spike mutations, some of which are concerning for their potential impact on the trajectory of the pandemic,” the WHO said. “The overall global risk related to the new variant of concern Omicron is assessed as very high.”
Further research is needed to better understand Omicron’s potential to escape protection against immunity induced by vaccines and previous infections, it said, adding that more data was expected in coming weeks.
“Covid -19 cases and infections are expected in vaccinated persons, albeit in a small and predictable proportion”, Reuters report it added.
John Swinney: 'no evidence of serious illness' in Omicron cases in Scotland
Deputy First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, has been on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland just now. Of the six people identified as having contracted the Omicron strain, he said:
The individuals concerned are being supported but there is no evidence of serious illness. Obviously we know that Covid can develop into serious illness.
He went on to say:
I think one of the points I would make about the early thinking about the Omicron strain is that it’s as yet unclear whether the strain gives rise to more serious illness. It certainly does look as if it is more transmissible than the Delta variant, for example, which was highly transmissible, but on the evidence that we have available at this stage, it doesn’t appear that Omicron leads to more serious illness. But obviously we we have to do everything we can to try to suppress the strain of the virus and to interrupted circulation within Scotland.
Asked about the prospect for future travel restrictions in Scotland, he said:
We’ve got to look very carefully at what will be the most effective ways of interrupting the circulation of the virus, and that’s the issue that we keep constantly under review within the Scottish Government. We have a range of well established baseline measures that we insist members of the public comply with in relation to the reading of face coverings, to observing social distancing, to ventilated rooms, to hand hygiene arrangements.
If we undertake as many of these measures as we possibly can do, we can take steps to interrupt the circulation of the virus. But we may have to take further measures in the light of the fact that we may be dealing with a strain of the virus which is more transmissible than previous incarnations.
Asked about the prospects for Christmas, Swinny said:
It is too early to say that. I think we are in a much stronger position because of the level of vaccination that we have within our society, and members of the public taking part tremendously in the vaccination programme. So we do have very high levels of protection within the population. It’s what we need to do beyond that, that I think is relevant for the next period ahead
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to hold emergency briefing over Omicron variant cases in Scotland
Nicola Sturgeon is to hold an emergency briefing at 10.30am Monday morning after it emerged that six cases of the new Covid variant Omnicron have been detected in Scotland, in Lanarkshire and the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.
The first minister is already due to warn people to redouble their efforts to follow physical distancing and mask-wearing guidelines in Scotland, and to make sure they are fully vaccinated, in her key- note speech to a Scottish National party conference later.
In a text released in advance, Sturgeon is expected to say:
There are big and very real challenges ahead over the winter months. Cases are rising in countries all around us. We know that colder weather, forcing us indoors, coupled with festive socialising will create increased opportunities for the virus to spread.
And, most seriously of all, the Omicron variant is causing profound concern here and across the world So we must not drop our guard. This is a time to be more vigilant, not less.
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Scotland's health secretary: 'we must redouble our efforts to follow basic rules'
Alongside that confirmation from the Scottish government that six cases of the Omicron variant have been identified, there are some quotes from Scotland’s health secretary Humza Yousaf. He said:
This will be a worrying time for the six people now identified as having the new variant. All will receive expert help and support and Public Health Scotland will undertake enhanced contact tracing in all cases. This will help establish the origin of the virus and any further individuals they have come into contact with in recent weeks.
We have already taken steps and are aligning with the new border restrictions being introduced by the UK Government which will require fully vaccinated arrivals to take a PCR test within two days of arrival and to self-isolate until a negative result is received. These measures will be introduced as soon as possible and kept under constant review. However, we reserve the right to go further if necessary. We are also adopting the expanded red list of countries identified by the UK Government. This will also be kept under review.
We must now redouble our efforts to follow the basic rules that have served us well throughout the pandemic – wear a face covering on public transport and in all indoor settings for food and retail; open windows especially if you have people visiting at home; keep washing your hands regularly and thoroughly. Work from home where possible, take regular lateral flow tests – especially before mixing with others outside your household.
Six cases of Omicron variant have been identified in Scotland
The Scottish government has just issued a statement confirming that six cases of the Omicron variant have been identified in Scotland. That takes the total number of identified cases in the UK to nine. The statement says:
Six cases of the Covid-19 Omicron variant have been identified in Scotland. Four cases are in the Lanarkshire area and two have been identified in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.
Public Health Scotland and local health protection teams are supporting and contact tracing is being undertaken to establish the origin of the virus and any individuals they have come into contact with in recent weeks.
Somewhat in contrast to the gloomy coronavirus news about new restrictions coming into place over the Omicron variant, there are pictures coming out from Singapore and Malaysia where they have just finally opened a long-awaited travel corridor.
Associated Press note that Malaysian health minister Khairy Jamaluddin tweeted that a Covid-19 case was detected during the screening in southern Johor state, but didn’t elaborate. “As we safely reopen our borders, there will be positive cases at points of entry. Risk assessment, isolation and monitoring close contacts will become the norm,” he said.
Under the first phase, only 1,440 travellers who must be citizens, permanent residents or long-term pass holders are allowed from each side per day. The Causeway was one of the world’s busiest land borders before the pandemic struck.
UK minister: tightening rules further is 'not something I’m anticipating'
Back to UK junior health minister Edward Argar on Sky News for a moment, asked if the government might tighten up the rules even further in the next three weeks, he said: “It’s not something I’m anticipating.”
Questioned why mask rules were being applied in some settings but not others – particularly crowded hospitality venues – he said:
In pubs, restaurants, hospitality venues, partly we’ve always seen this throughout the pandemic, people are eating, drinking. It’s clearly not practical to wear a mask in those circumstances. In a restaurant a long time is spent sitting down with your group, whoever you come with.
Again describing the government’s decision as “proportionate” and “measured” he said that the situation in retail and transport was different from the situation in hospitality venues because they were often a more confined space.
We don’t believe we need to, or should do that, in hospitality or restaurant venues at this point, and hopefully we won’t need to make any further changes. Hopefully in three weeks we’ll be able to scale back what we’ve done.
If you haven’t seen it already, my colleague Linda Geddes has put together this explainer answering the question: What does appearance of Omicron variant mean for the double-vaccinated?
All the vaccines currently available in the UK work by training the immune system against the coronavirus spike protein – the key it uses to infect cells by binding to the ACE2 receptor. Omicron possesses more than 30 mutations in this protein, including 10 in the so-called “receptor-binding domain” (RBD) – the specific part that latches on to this receptor. Delta has two RBD mutations.
We know that people who have been double-jabbed can, and do, get infected with the Delta variant – although the chances of this happening are approximately three times lower than if they hadn’t been vaccinated. More importantly, vaccinated individuals are roughly nine times less likely to die if they do become infected.
Read more here: What does appearance of Omicron variant mean for the double-vaccinated?
Labour's Angela Rayner: 'no point vaccinating Britain if rest of world is not given vaccines as well'
In the UK, Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has said ensuring people have sick pay when they have to self-isolate is “one of the most crucial things we can do” amid the rise of the Omicron variant, along with people wearing face coverings – “including the prime minister”.
PA Media quotes her appearing on BBC Breakfast, where she said:
If people have to self-isolate or go off sick they have to be given sick pay, it’s one of the most crucial things we can do to ensure that everybody can do the right thing and protect people from this new variant.
The booster jab should be given as quickly as possible – we said five months – hopefully that will happen now, and there should be ventilation in schools.
People should be wearing masks, including the prime minister when he’s visiting public spaces indoors.
The G7 was very clear in its commitment to rolling out the vaccines across the globe and we’ve not met those targets.
We’ve seen that there’s no point in vaccinating Britain if the rest of the world is not given the vaccines as well.
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Health expert says Boris Johnson comments on vaccine hesitancy in developing nations 'just aren’t true'
Global health expert Dr Peter Drobac has questioned UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s comment on low vaccination rates in developing nations being due to vaccine hesitancy, adding that a lack of vaccine equity has “created the perfect breeding ground” for new variants.
Dr Drobac, a University of Oxford academic who specialises in infectious diseases, speaking on Sky News earlier, said: “There are still over 3 billion people around the world who haven’t had access to a vaccine. In Africa only 5% of the population is fully vaccinated. The prime minister’s comments just aren’t true.
“Botswana, a middle-income country, signed a deal with Moderna at a very high price – a higher price than we pay for vaccines – months ago and are still waiting for stock because they’re being prioritised to wealthier countries,” PA Media quotes him saying.
“The conditions where you have low levels of vaccination and high levels of virus circulating are the perfect breeding ground for variants which are resistant to vaccines.
“So by allowing this continued moral failure of not being more creative and ambitious and aggressive in vaccinating everyone around the world, we have made it more likely for things like the Omicron variant to appear.”
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UK junior health minister Edward Argar has defended the speed with which the UK government moved to add countries to England’s travel red list in the light of the emergence of the Omicron variant, saying:
I think we’ve moved globally among, if not, the fastest countries in the world. I think South Africa identified the genomic sequencing on Tuesday. On Thursday, even before this was designated, we’d already set out a set of steps to tackle this both in terms on borders, but also in terms of the plans around around testing. I think we moved very swiftly when people were returning or were in flight. They were met by health officials. We would expect them to take that PCR test of course. Now we’ve got the ten countries, I think it is, on the red list. So I think we move very swiftly, proportionately.
Here are the countries on England’s travel red list:
Argar was pressed on the sudden imposition of the cost of testing and hotel quarantine on families who had travelled to the affected countries when they weren’t on the red list. He said:
I do appreciate that it’s extremely difficult people who will go on holiday gone to visit family or family events and suddenly fall into this situation. This is the nature of this virus. We believe that we’ve acted in a proportionate, measured way to help address the challenge.
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Health minister on number of Omicron cases in the UK: 'I would expect that to rise'
Edward Argar, minister of state for health in the UK, is on media duties this morning for the government, and he has made an appearance on Sky News. The interview ranged across several Covid-related topics.
Firstly he stressed that “it’s still early days in terms of understanding how it actually affects total transmissibility, in terms of how dangerous it is. Therefore, let’s let the scientists do their work.”
On the discovery of three cases so far in the UK, he said he expected the numbers to rise:
I’ll be honest, I would expect that to rise. We don’t know by what speed, or by what numbers. What we’re doing is trying to slow it down, but we can’t we can’t stop it. And we’re trying to give ourselves the time to understand how it works and how it interacts with the vaccine. But that’s why we’re putting in place these sensible precautionary measures to help slow it down.
India has announced that new travel rules will come into effect from 1 December. A government statement says that in view of the development of the Omicron variant. Reuters report they say that all inbound travellers from “countries at risk” are to mandatorily undergo post-arrival testing. Additionally 5% of travellers coming from countries not in the “at risk” category will be tested on a random basis.
Hello from London, it is Martin Belam here. Here’s a reminder of the latest Covid data in the UK, as the world braces for the potential impact of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Over the last seven days there have been 305,656 new coronavirus cases recorded in the UK. Cases have increased by 8.6% week-on-week.
There have been 848 deaths recorded in the last week. Deaths have decreased by 17.6% week-on-week. Hospital admissions have decreased by 11.2% week-on-week.
At the latest count on the UK government’s own dashboard, there were 7,633 people in hospital in total, of whom 925 are in ventilation beds.
That’s it from me, Virginia Harrison. I’m handing over to my colleague, Martin Belam in London. Here are the major developments around the world over the past 24 hours:
- G7 health ministers are to hold an emergency meeting on Monday on the new Omicron Covid-19 strain, as experts race to understand what the variant means for the fight to end the pandemic.
- Omicron has been detected in at least a dozen countries including Britain, Germany, France, Denmark, Israel, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia and South Africa.
- Japan will close its border to all foreign visitors from Tuesday to prevent the spread of Omicron, prime minister Fumio Kishida said.
- South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has criticised border closures and called on nations to lift the travel bans “before any further damage is done to our economies”.
- Singapore and Malaysia have re-opened one of the world’s busiest land borders, allowing vaccinated travellers to make the crossing after nearly two years of closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Reuters reports.
- Canada’s health minister says the country’s first two cases of Omicron have been found in Ontario after two individuals who had recently travelled from Nigeria tested positive. They are the first cases to be detected in North America.
- The Philippines has launched an ambitious drive to vaccinate nine million people against Covid-19 over three days, deploying security forces and using tens of thousands of volunteers to help administer the programme.
- A case of the Omicron variant has been confirmed in Australia’s Northern Territory, while New South Wales has also confirmed two and is investigating the possibility of two further cases
- The top US infectious disease official, Dr Anthony Fauci, has told president Joe Biden it will take about two weeks to have definitive information on the new variant and has warned the US has “the potential to go into a fifth wave” of coronavirus infections.
- Authorities in the Netherlands detected at least 13 cases of the Omicron variant from recent flights into Amsterdam from South Africa.
- The 194 member states of the World Health Organization have agreed to launch pandemic treaty negotiations as the world prepares to learn the lessons of Covid for the next pandemic.
- The UK reported 37,681 new Covid cases and 51 deaths, with the government vaccine watchdog suggesting the vaccine booster drive could be accelerated as soon as Monday to suppress cases.
Switzerland has detected its first probable case of the Omicron variant, the government said late on Sunday.
The case relates to a person who returned to Switzerland from South Africa around a week ago, the Federal Office for Public Health said on Twitter. Testing will clarify the situation in the coming days, it added.
Switzerland has ordered that travellers from 19 countries - including Britain, South Africa and Israel - present a negative test when boarding a fight to the country, and must go into quarantine for 10 days on arrival.
Swiss voters on Sunday firmly backed the law behind the country’s Covid pass in a referendum, following a tense campaign that saw unprecedented levels of hostility.
US and UK markets were poised for a stronger start to trading on Monday as investors prepared to wait to see if the Omicron variant would really derail economic recoveries, Reuters reports.
Oil prices bounced more than $3 a barrel to recoup a chunk of Friday’s shellacking.
Asian markets mostly closed with slim losses, while the S&P 500 futures added 1% and FTSE futures rose 1.3%.
Summary
That’s it from me, Helen Livingstone, for today, I’m handing over to my colleague Virginia Harrison.
Here’s a rundown of developments around the world over the past 24 hours:
- G7 health ministers are to hold an emergency meeting on Monday on the new Omicron Covid-19 strain, as experts race to understand what the variant means for the fight to end the pandemic.
- Omicron has been detected in at least a dozen countries including Britain, Germany, France, Denmark, Israel, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia and South Africa.
- Japan will effectively close its border to all foreign visitors before the end of the month to prevent the spread of Omicron, Japanese broadcaster NTV has reported.
- Singapore and Malaysia have re-opened one of the world’s busiest land borders, allowing vaccinated travellers to make the crossing after nearly two years of closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Reuters reports.
- Canada’s health minister says the country’s first two cases of Omicron have been found in Ontario after two individuals who had recently travelled from Nigeria tested positive. They are the first cases to be detected in North America.
- The Philippines has launched an ambitious drive to vaccinate nine million people against Covid-19 over three days, deploying security forces and using tens of thousands of volunteers to help administer the programme.
- A case of the Omicron variant has been confirmed in Australia’s Northern Territory, while New South Wales has also confirmed two and is investigating the possibility of two further cases
- The top US infectious disease official, Dr Anthony Fauci, has told president Joe Biden it will take about two weeks to have definitive information on the new variant and has warned the US has “the potential to go into a fifth wave” of coronavirus infections.
- Authorities in the Netherlands detected at least 13 cases of the Omicron variant from recent flights into Amsterdam from South Africa.
- The 194 member states of the World Health Organization have agreed to launch pandemic treaty negotiations as the world prepares to learn the lessons of Covid for the next pandemic.
- The UK reported 37,681 new Covid cases and 51 deaths, with the government vaccine watchdog suggesting the vaccine booster drive could be accelerated as soon as Monday to suppress cases.
A resurgence of Covid-19 infections in northern China has forced two small cities to suspend public transport and tighten control over residents’ movement, Reuters reports, as the country shows no willingness to go easy on local outbreaks.
China reported 21 new locally transmitted Covid-19 cases with confirmed symptoms on Sunday, official data showed on Monday, marking the highest daily count since mid-November. Almost all of the new local cases were detected in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia.
The latest cases came shortly after a few other northern cities, hit hard in China’s biggest Delta outbreak, which started mid-October, had contained their clusters this month and gradually lifted curbs, indicating it has become harder for China to stay clear of local flare-ups.
The new resurgence is tiny relative to many outbreaks overseas, and national officials specified that China does not aim for remaining at zero cases.
However, Beijing still requires officials to stay on high vigilance to be ready to quickly quash local outbreaks, meaning some tough curbs are likely to be imposed when new cases emerge.
In the Inner Mongolian city of Manzhouli, a crucial port of entry that borders Russia and has about 150,000 residents, reported 20 local symptomatic cases on Sunday.
Over the weekend, Manzhouli banned residents from leaving town and suspended public transport as well as certain non-urgent services at hospitals.
It also closed marketplaces and entertainment venues, halted dining in restaurants, in-person school classes and religious gatherings, and started a second round of citywide testing.
Hailar district, an administrative division about three hours away from Manzhouli, has blocked some roads linking it to the outside and required people arriving from Manzhouli to be quarantined at centralised facilities for two weeks.
Nehe, a city of about 440,000 in the northeastern Heilongjiang province, reported on Sunday one locally transmitted asymptomatic carrier, which China counts separately from confirmed patients.
Nehe has tightened controls over residents’ movement, shut down non-essential businesses, and cut public transport and some services at private hospitals and clinics.
The cities of Suihua, Shuangyashan and Daqing, also in Heilongjiang province, have required people seeking to leave or enter to provide proof of a negative test result within 48 hours.
Japan to close its borders to foreign travellers
More from our Tokyo correspondent Justin McCurry, after Japan announced it will this week close its border to all foreign visitors to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, only weeks after it relaxed restrictions on some travellers from overseas.
The prime minister, Fumio Kishida, said a ban on all foreign entrants – which will not apply to the country’s non-Japan residents – would go into effect on Tuesday, reversing a decision earlier this month to admit foreign business travellers, students and interns under certain conditions.
The move by Japan, which is reporting consistently low Covid-19 case numbers, comes a day after it tightened restrictions on travellers from South Africa, where the variant was discovered, and eight other countries.
“We are taking measures with a strong sense of crisis,” Kishida told reporters on Monday, hours before the new measures were announced, according to the Kyodo news agency.
The tightening of border controls will dismay foreign students – until now the biggest single group of foreign entrants – as many have already started the administrative process to come to Japan after a year or more of studying remotely.
While no Omicron cases have been identified in Japan, confirmation that the variant is present in the country could frustrate plans to restart the government’s subsidised Go To travel scheme early next year.
Canada’s health minister has said the country’s first two cases of Omicron were found in Ontario after two individuals who had recently travelled from Nigeria tested positive. They are the first cases to be detected in North America.
“Today, the province of Ontario has confirmed two cases of the omicron variant of COVID-19 in Ottawa, both of which were reported in individuals with recent travel from Nigeria. Ottawa Public Health is conducting case and contact management and the patients are in isolation,” the government said in a statement on Sunday, according to CBC.
The news came just days after Canada impose travel restrictions on foreign nationals travelling from several countries in southern Africa.
Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has said he will bar all foreign arrivals over the new variant, after saying: “We are taking measures with a strong sense of crisis.” The ban comes into effect on Tuesday.
The country, which is reporting consistently low Covid-19 case numbers, had started to ease restrictions on some travellers earlier this month.
Although experts say it is too early to know if existing vaccines are effective against the new variant, Kishida said Japan, where more than 76% of the population is fully vaccinated, would go ahead with plans to administer booster shots from next month, beginning with older people and health workers.
Updated
The Philippines has launched an ambitious drive to vaccinate nine million people against Covid-19 over three days, Reuters reports, deploying security forces and using tens of thousands of volunteers to help administer the programme.
The immunisation campaign was scaled back from an earlier target of 15 million shots, but would still be a record in a country where vaccine hesitancy remains an obstacle and there are logistical hurdles to reach people in the sprawling archipelago.
Three million vaccinations per day is nearly four times the average of 829,000 daily shots in November. An official said news of the Omicron variant made the campaign even more vital.
“It is better to be prepared for the effects of Omicron,” Carlito Galvez, the country’s vaccination chief, told CNN Philippines on Monday.
The spread of the Omicron variant, which the World Health Organization has described as a “variant of concern”, has sparked global travel restrictions and rattled financial markets.
The Philippines has faced one of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks in Asia and has been slower than many of its neighbours in immunising its people. About 35.6 million people have been fully vaccinated, or a third of its 110 million population.
The country aims to immunise 54 million people by the end of 2021 and 77 million by next March.
New infections have fallen sharply to an average of 1,679 a day in November from a peak of 18,579 average daily cases in September, paving the way for a wider economic reopening.
Vaccination rates have remained uneven, with 93% of the capital region’s residents fully inoculated as of mid-November compared with 10.9% of the predominantly Muslim regions in the southern Philippines, government data show.
The government has said it would deploy 160,000 volunteers in 11,000 vaccination sites nationwide for the three-day campaign.
Updated
A case of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 has been confirmed in Australia’s Northern Territory, while New South Wales is also investigating the possibility of further cases and the state’s premier, Dominic Perrottet, has warned against “knee-jerk” reactions to the new strain.
The NSW health department said on Monday that urgent genomic testing was under way to determine if two passengers who arrived on a flight on Sunday and tested positive to Covid had the new variant.
That follows confirmation on Sunday that two people who had recently returned from southern Africa had tested positive for the new variant in Sydney.
They were among 141 people to have flown into NSW from the handful of countries in southern Africa which have been subject to increased border restrictions since the new variant was detected.
For more, read on here:
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern says the Omicron variant demonstrates why the country will need public health measures into the future, as the country maintains its closed borders for the next two months, and prepares to shift into a new system of “traffic light” restrictions.
“Covid-19 is still with us, and the emergence of the Omicron variant overseas is a reminder of why we need to maintain a careful approach and keep public health measures in place to protect us,” Ardern said.
At present the country’s borders remain closed, with the government announcing last week it would plan for a staggered reopening in the early months of 2022. The country plans to open to New Zealanders coming from Australia in mid-January, from the rest of the world in mid-February, and to vaccinated international travellers in mid-April.
Asked if the country would introduce more restrictions in response to Omicron cases, director general of health Ashley Bloomfield said, “we are doing what we’ve done right through the pandemic, which is to try to keep the virus out as much as possible to give us time to learn more.”
The country has already tweaked its border rules so those coming from southern African countries must do a full 14-day quarantine period.
On Monday afternoon Ardern also announced how regions of the country would be split into different levels of Covid rules, under a new system that would involve an overall loosening of rules.
Places with large outbreaks or low vaccination rates would come in at “red”, and the rest of the country will be at “orange”. Both levels give a high degree of freedom for the vaccinated.
They require people to wear masks in many public places, and vaccine passports will be required to enter many businesses, including hospitality, hairdressers and gyms. Under orange, there are less restrictions on gathering size for those who are vaccinated.
Updated
Dutch border police say they have arrested a couple on a plane after they fled a quarantine hotel where Covid-positive passengers from South African flights were staying, AFP reports.
The drama came after Dutch authorities said that 61 people who arrived on two flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Friday had tested positive for the coronavirus, 13 of them with the new Omicron variant.
One of the members of the couple had tested positive for Covid-19 and went into isolation, while the other person was negative but in quarantine, according to Public health authority spokeswoman Stefanie van Waardenburg.
She added that both were back in isolation, but not at the same hotel.
They are a Spanish man, 30 and a Portuguese woman, aged 28, police spokesman Stan Verberkt told AFP.
“The Royal Netherlands Marechaussee at Schiphol has arrested a couple this evening who had fled from a quarantine hotel,” Verberkt said.
“The arrests took place in a plane that was about to take off. They were on a plane that was about to depart for Spain at around 6:00 pm,” he added.
Border police are now laying charges with the Dutch public prosecutor’s office against the couple for jeopardising public safety, he said.
The pair had been handed over to the public health authority, Verberkt confirmed.
It was not known how the couple left the hotel or how the alarm was raised.
As Omicron spreads around the globe, epidemiologist Meru Sheel argues that the emergence of the variant could have been avoided had lower income countries had more equal access to vaccines. She writes,
Viral mutations are a part of natural selection and are common. When the virus enters a cell, it can make copies of itself that go off and infect other cells and then pass to another person.
Sometimes during this process of copying in non-immune persons, it may introduce an “error” or mutation, and at times these mutations can offer competitive advantage to the viruses to spread from one non-immune person to another.
But if a person is already immune (say from vaccination), then the virus cannot spread between people, preventing the emergence of new variants.
Read more here:
Updated
G7 health ministers to meet
G7 health ministers are to hold an emergency meeting on Monday on the new Omicron Covid-19 strain, as experts race to understand what the variant means for the fight to end the pandemic, AFP reports.
The meeting was called by G7 chair Britain, which is among a steadily growing number of countries detecting cases of the heavily mutated new strain.
Omicron, first discovered in southern Africa, represents a fresh challenge to global efforts to battle the pandemic. Several countries have already re-imposed restrictions many had hoped were a thing of the past.
“We know we are now in a race against time,” said European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. Vaccine manufacturers needed two to three weeks “to get a full picture of the quality of the mutations”, she added.
A long list of countries has already imposed travel restrictions on southern Africa, including key travel hub Qatar, as well as the United States, Britain, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Netherlands.
Angola became the first southern African country to suspend all flights from its regional neighbours Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa.
South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday called on countries to lift the travel bans “before any further damage is done to our economies”.
Countries are moving quickly to seal their borders as information about the Omicron variant - which was first detected in South Africa - continues to emerge. Here are some of the restrictions in place:
- Israel has banned the entry of all foreigners
- Morocco has suspended all incoming flights for two weeks
- Canada has banned foreigners who have travelled to certain countries in southern Africa
- Britain has added several African countries to its red list
- US will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other African nations from Monday
- Japan has closed its border to foreigners travelling from nine countries including South Africa
- Australia has banned flights from nine African countries and imposed new quarantine measures for returning citizens
- Angola has suspended all flights from its regional neighbours Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa.
New Zealand has announced 182 new cases of Covid-19 on Monday. Daily case numbers have remained relatively steady over the past week with a rolling average of 179, in what experts say is a promising indication the outbreak could be peaking – but with the country due to switch into a new “traffic light” system of eased restrictions next week, it’s too early to say whether those numbers will remain under control.
According to Ministry of Health data, 92% of the eligible (those aged 12 and over) population have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 85% are double-dosed. According to Stats NZ population estimates, 76% of the full population have had at least one dose, and 71% have had both.
Māori remain behind the wider population, with 82% of those eligible having had one dose, and 68% having had both. The country has 93 people hospitalised with the virus, and 10 in ICU.
China reported 41 new coronavirus cases for 28 November, up from 23 a day earlier, Reuters reports.
Of the new infections, 21 were locally transmitted, according to a statement from the National Health Commission, compared with three a day earlier. Almost all of the new locally transmitted cases were in Inner Mongolia.
China also reported 22 new asymptomatic cases, which it classifies separately from confirmed cases, the same as a day earlier.
So far, the Omicron strain has been detected in at least a dozen countries including Britain, Germany, France, Denmark, Israel, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia and South Africa.
No cases of the new variant have been confirmed in the US. The White House said president Joe Biden would “provide an update about the new variant and the US response on Monday”.
Singapore and Malaysia have re-opened one of the world’s busiest land borders, allowing vaccinated travellers to make the crossing after nearly two years of closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Reuters reports.
The sudden closure of the border in March 2020 left tens of thousands people stranded on both sides, separated from families and fearing for their jobs.
As many as 300,000 Malaysians commuted daily to wealthy city-state Singapore before the pandemic.
Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob is also due to make his first official visit as premier to Singapore on Monday.
Under the new arrangement, up to 1,440 travellers from each side can travel if they hold citizenship, permanent residency or long-term visas in the destination country, without undergoing quarantine, according to guidelines published by the Singapore government.
Travellers must test negative for Covid-19 before departure, and Malaysia also requires travellers to pass on-arrival Covid-19 test. Singapore on Sunday followed suit by requiring on-arrival test due to concerns over the new Covid-19 variant Omicron.
A vaccinated air travel lane between the two countries also started on Monday.
Singapore has vaccinated 85% of its entire population, while Malaysia has jabbed around 80%.
Singapore, with an ageing population of 5.5 million, relies heavily on Malaysians living in the southern state of Johor, which is connected to Singapore by land, to staff businesses ranging from restaurants to semiconductor manufacturing.
Singapore reported 747 locally acquired Covid-19 cases on Sunday, the lowest tally since mid September. Malaysia reported 4,239 cases, the smallest number since early November.
Updated
Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida has said his country will consider further tightening its borders as the Omicron variant spreads around the world, Reuters reports.
“We are (taking measures) with a strong sense of crisis,” Kishida told reporters on Monday, noting that Japan closed its borders to foreigners travelling from nine countries including South Africa as of Sunday.
“As we’re seeing a spread around the world, we continue to consider further measures to tighten border controls and will announce a decision at the appropriate time.”
If you want to know more about the new Omicron variant and the vaccine, check out this explainer. Will Omicron be more resistant to vaccines? How much protection can vaccines offer? Will third doses help? Can we modify vaccines? What if you’ve already been infected with another strain of Covid? Will antiviral drugs work against Omicron? Guardian correspondent Linda Geddes has some answers.
The Australian state of New South Wales is investigating a possible third case of the new Omicron variant of Covid-19 as the premier, Dominic Perrottet, has warned against “knee-jerk” reactions to the strain.
The NSW health department announced on Sunday that two people who had recently returned from southern Africa had tested positive for the new variant in Sydney.
They include South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Eswatini, Malawi and the Seychelles.
But on Monday Perrottet said there had “possibly” been a third case, which the state’s health department was investigating.
Guardian Australia correspondent Michael McGowan has more:
Welcome
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic with me, Helen Livingstone.
Canada’s health minister says the country’s first two cases of Omicron have been found in Ontario after two individuals who had recently travelled from Nigeria tested positive. They are the first cases to be detected in North America. Canada has banned travellers who have visited southern Africa countries in the past two weeks in a ban which came into effect on Friday.
The top US infectious disease official, Dr Anthony Fauci, has told president Joe Biden it will take about two weeks to have definitive information on the new variant and has warned the US has “the potential to go into a fifth wave” of coronavirus infections.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said Omicron was a “wake-up call” for global vaccine inequality. He has opposed travel bans announced on southern African countries in recent days, amid fears of the economic toll. The World Health Organization has echoed Ramaphosa’s concern and called for borders to remain open, citing uncertainty over the transmissibility, severity and vaccine disruption from Omicron.
Here’s a recap of the latest developments as the new Omicron variant continues to cause panic around the world.
- Authorities in the Netherlands detected at least 13 cases of the Omicron variant from recent flights into Amsterdam from South Africa.
- Botswana, which borders South Africa, said it has recorded a total 19 Omicron cases.
- The UK said it has detected three total Omicron infections in Nottingham, Essex and the London borough of Westminster, with targeted PCR testing being stepped up.
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European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen warned of global “race against time” against Omicron, urging people to practice social distancing and get vaccinated so scientists have time to understand the new variant’s transmissibility and severity.
- The health ministers of the G7 will hold an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the Omicron variant.
- The 194 member states of the World Health Organization agreed to launch pandemic treaty negotiations as the world prepares to learn the lessons of Covid for the next pandemic.
- The UK reported 37,681 new Covid cases and 51 deaths, with the government vaccine watchdog suggesting the vaccine booster drive could be accelerated as soon as Monday to suppress cases.
- Secondary school pupils and teachers in England will wear once again face coverings in communal areas.
- Israel suspended all flights into the country on Sunday at 10pm GMT after detecting its first Omicron infection on Friday, just four weeks after it fully opened its skies to vaccinated travellers.
- Morocco said it will stop all incoming flights for two weeks starting Monday to prevent spread of the new strain.
Updated
