Thanks for joining us. We will now be closing this Covid blog.
However, you can catch up with all the latest developments on our new blog here.
Summary
Here is a snapshot of all the key Covid developments:
- Omicron has killed at least one person in Britain, prime minister Boris Johnson revealed.
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Boris Johnson issued an appeal to members of the public to step forward to assist the Covid booster jab programme.
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Norway tightens Covid measures and bans serving of alcohol in bid to halt Omicron outbreak.
- Protests in Latvia turned violent after a police officer was injured and four demonstrators arrested as several thousand people in the capital Riga protested anti-Covid restrictions.
- Peru says it is battling a “resurgence” of the pandemic, with infections and deaths rising. The country has the world’s highest coronavirus death rate.
- China has recorded its first case of the Omicron variant, state media report authorities in the northeastern city of Tianjin as saying.
- In Denmark, health authorities say a third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine will be offered sooner to everyone over 40 to curb the spread of the Omicron variant.
- The US Air Force has discharged 27 people for refusing to get the Covid-19 vaccine, making them what officials believe are the first service members to be removed for disobeying the mandate to get the shots.
- California will impose a statewide mask mandate in all indoor public spaces.
- Covid-19 cases in Canada may rapidly rise in the coming days due to community spread of the Omicron variant.
- Nigeria will destroy around one million expired Covid-19 vaccines, Faisal Shuaib, head of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), said.
- At least 200,000 Covid-19 vaccines have expired in Senegal without being used in the past two months and another 200,000 are set to expire at the end of December because demand is too slow, the head of its immunisation programme said.
- Thailand will halve to three months the time between administering a second Covid-19 vaccine shot and a booster, health officials said.
The Omicron variant likely accounts for 11% of new Covid-19 cases in Ireland, its Chief Medical Officer said on Monday, while predicting a very rapid increase in the proportion of Omicron infections in the coming days amid probable widespread community transmission.
Ireland has so far confirmed 18 cases of the variant through whole-genome sequencing out of an average 4,000 Covid-19 cases it has been reporting each day.
A trait distinguishing Omicron from the dominant Delta variant suggests a much higher total, said the National Public Health Emergency Team.
Ireland’s Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan said in a statement:
Using this methodology, we estimate that 11% of cases are now due to the Omicron variant, an increase from less than 1% only one week ago.”
Just over 90% of Ireland’s eligible 3.9 million people over the age of 12 have been fully vaccinated - one of the highest rates of protection in Europe - and it has administered a further 1.2 million booster doses.
Covid passports could increase vaccine uptake, study suggests
Coronavirus passports could lead to increased uptake of vaccines, especially among young people, a study suggests.
Research by the University of Oxford found Covid-19 certification led to increased jab uptake 20 days before and 40 days after introduction in countries with lower-than-average vaccination coverage. Increase in vaccine uptake was most pronounced in people under 30. The modelling analysis was published in The Lancet Public Health.
Coronavirus passports require people to have proof of either complete vaccination, a negative test or a Covid-19 recovery certificate to access public venues and events, such as restaurants or concerts. As well as helping to prevent the spread of coronavirus in public venues, it has been suggested they may encourage more unvaccinated people to get vaccinated, particularly those who perceive their own risk of hospitalisation or death from Covid-19 as low.
Read the full story from our reporter Andrew Gregory here.
Hello it’s Samantha Lock back with you on the blog as my colleague Jedidajah Otte takes a well-deserved break.
First up, some Covid numbers out of Australia.
The country’s most populous state of NSW has recorded 804 new Covid-19 cases and one death, a significant jump from previous days.
Victoria recorded 1,189 new cases a six deaths.
Prime minister Scott Morrison called on states and territories to ease their last remaining Covid-19 restrictions, as Western Australia announced plans to reopen its hard border to the rest of the nation.
The US Air Force has discharged 27 people for refusing to get the Covid-19 vaccine, making them what officials believe are the first service members to be removed for disobeying the mandate to get the shots.
The Associated Press reports:
The Air Force gave its forces until 2 November to get the vaccine, and thousands have either refused or sought an exemption. Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said Monday that these are the first airmen to be administratively discharged for reasons involving the vaccine.
She said all of them were in their first term of enlistment, so they were younger, lower-ranking personnel. And while the Air Force does not disclose what type of discharge a service member gets, legislation working its way through Congress limits the military to giving troops in vaccine refusal cases an honorable discharge or general discharge under honorable conditions.
The Pentagon earlier this year required the vaccine for all members of the military, including active duty, National Guard and the Reserves. Each of the services set its own deadlines and procedures for the mandate, and the Air Force set the earliest deadline.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said the vaccine is critical to maintaining the health of the force and its ability to respond to an national security crisis.
None of the 27 airmen sought any type of exemption, medical, administrative or religious, Stefanek said. Several officials from the other services said they believe that so far only the Air Force has gotten this far along in the process and discharged people over the vaccine refusal.
As a result, they were formally removed from service for failure to obey an order. Stefanek said it is also possible that some had other infractions on their records, but all had the vaccine refusal as one of the elements of their discharge.
It is not unusual for members of the military to be thrown out of the service for disobeying an order — discipline is a key tenet of the armed services. As a comparison, Stefanek said that in the first three quarters of 2021, about 1,800 airmen were discharged for failure to follow orders.
According to the latest Air Force data, more than 1,000 airmen have refused the shot and more than 4,700 are seeking a religious exemption. As of last week, a bit more than 97% of the active duty Air Force had gotten at least one shot.
Boris Johnson appeals to British public for 'tens of thousands' of volunteers to speed up booster jabs
UK prime minister Boris Johnson has issued an appeal to members of the public to step forward to assist the Covid booster jab programme in a race to counter the new Omicron variant.
Johnson, who announced the new mass booster programme on Sunday, said “tens of thousands” of volunteers were needed in order to ramp up delivery of booster jabs to an unprecedented pace.
Roles needing to be filled by volunteers range from stewards to organise and manage the queues to trained vaccinators to administer the jabs.
On Sunday, Johnson announced that every eligible adult in England is to be offered a booster shot by the end of December, a month earlier than previously planned, while resources are being made available to the devolved nations to speed up delivery.
Johnson has acknowledged that it will require an “extraordinary effort” by the NHS, with hundreds more vaccination sites, mobile units and pop-ups due to open over the coming week.
In a direct appeal to the public, Johnson said:
As part of our Get Boosted Now vaccination drive we need to increase our jabbing capacity to unprecedented levels.
But to achieve something on this scale, we need your help.
So today I’m issuing a call for volunteers to join our national mission to get jabs in arms.
We need tens of thousands of people to help out, everyone from trained vaccinators to stewards.
Many thousands have already given their time but we need you to come forward again, to work alongside our brilliant GPs, doctors, nurses and pharmacists, to deliver jabs and save lives.
So please come forward if you can.
There are currently almost 3,000 vaccine sites across the country, staffed by over 90,000 volunteers, PA reports.
After the NHS last week announced a recruitment drive for 10,000 paid vaccinators, 4,500 people have registered their interest while 13,000 have come forward as volunteer stewards.
Updated
Brazil logged 2,082 fresh infections and 48 new deaths from Covid-19 on Monday as infections are still decreasing in the country, with 7,133 new infections reported on average each day.
That’s 9% of the peak, which was reached on 23 June, according to the Reuters Covid-19 Tracker.
Overall, 22,188,179 infections and 616,744 coronavirus-related deaths have been reported in the country since the pandemic began.
California to impose mask mandate for all indoor public spaces
California will impose a statewide mask mandate in all indoor public spaces as Covid-19 case rates soar with the spread of the new Omicron variant, the state secretary of health and human services, Mark Ghaly, said on Monday.
As of Saturday, 7.4 million of California’s population of around 40 million had received their booster jab, according to the office of governor Gavin Newsom.
Updated
My colleague Dan Sabbagh has written up a piece on how the NHS will gear up for the “huge challenge” of delivering prime minister Boris Johnson’s new booster jab target:
Doctors, nurses and NHS executives will have to find a way of trebling the rate of booster vaccinations to more than 1.2m a day if they are to offer all eligible adults in the UK a jab by the end of December.
The target came as a surprise to the health service, which will now have to find staff to work through the holiday season, alongside the 750 military personnel drafted in to assist them.
Full story here:
Covid-19 cases in Canada may rapidly rise in the coming days due to community spread of the Omicron variant, mirroring the situation in the country’s most populous province of Ontario, Canada’s top health official said on Monday.
Ontario, which accounts for almost 40% of Canada’s population of 39 million people, reported 1,536 cases of Covid-19 on Monday, a more-than 70% increase from a week ago, including 80 cases of the Omicron variant.
The surge has prompted the provincial government to suspend easing of restrictions that were planned to be lifted ahead of the holiday season, Reuters reports.
The World Health Organization has said that the Omicron coronavirus variant poses a “very high” global risk, having reached over 60 countries, while it remains unclear for the moment how much vaccines can protect against it.
Ontario has directed government staff, who started gradually returning to their offices in November, to go back to working from home at least until early-February, CTV news reported Monday.
The University of Victoria in the provimce of British Columbia announced on Sunday that it will be moving its in-person exams online from Monday after a rise in Covid-19 cases on Vancouver Island.
Schools in England should not be closing early for Christmas unless they have been told it is “necessary” on public health grounds, the British government has said.
The prime minister’s official spokesman indicated that schools would be kept open unless there is an “absolute public health emergency”, PA reports.
Asked whether schools might close early for Christmas, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said:
Certainly we do not think anyone should be closing schools early unless they have received advice from the local director of public health that it’s necessary on public health grounds.
We wouldn’t want to see that happening routinely, just as a precaution, because as I’ve said, education is vital. And we’ve seen, sadly, because of the public health crisis, children have to miss face-to-face education. And so it’s very important that we maintain schooling as much as possible.
The NASUWT teaching union however is calling on education secretary Nadhim Zahawi to urgently announce additional measures for schools and colleges before the Christmas break to avoid a repeat of the “chaos” last year.
The Government should advise schools to cancel or postpone non-essential activities and events immediately, as well as move to online staff and parental meetings, the union says.
A staggered return of pupils in January should be considered and extra on-site testing facilities should be provided until the February half-term, the union says.
Health secretary Sajid Javid said on Monday he could not guarantee schools would not close again due to the pandemic.
Zahawi said on Sunday he could not guarantee that all schools would be open everywhere in January.
Updated
Northern Ireland is set to be overwhelmed by the Covid-19 variant Omicron “very, very soon”, the deputy first minister warned on Monday.
Michelle O’Neill said there were 10 confirmed cases of the new Covid-19 variant in Northern Ireland on Monday.
PA reports:
Earlier first minister Paul Givan urged take-up of the Covid vaccination booster, warning that a “storm coming our way”.
However his party [the DUP] has opposed Covid certification for entering some hospitality venues.
On Monday evening, MLAs debated the regulations in the Assembly chamber where health minister Robin Swann urged united support for the scheme.
“A united front is what we need, with joined up policies and united messaging. That has been sadly lacking at critical stages to date,” he told MLAs.
“It is my fervent hope that today marks a turning point, that, given the seriousness of our situation, that this House can debate this measure rationally and respectfully.”
However, DUP MLA Pam Cameron said her party will not back the Covid certification scheme.
There was a protest at Stormont earlier by those opposed to the scheme.
Former DUP economy minister Paul Frew, a vocal critic of mandatory certification, was among a number of party members who met with the protesters outside Parliament Buildings.
He suggested the scheme could be halted by way of legal challenge.
“There are going to be legal challenges, there is no doubt about that and that’s where it might be stopped,” he told demonstrators.
“I hear you 100%, and I’m with you, but this will only be tested legally.”
Speaking inside the Assembly chamber, Ms O’Neill called for parties to unite.
“If ever there was a time for a united front on the public health message, it’s today because we’re facing into a very, very difficult period in the weeks ahead where we see this new variant now coming on stream, we’re probably about two weeks behind what’s happening in England and Scotland and they are getting into very difficult territory,” she told MLAs during Executive Office questions.“We are going to be overwhelmed with this new variant very, very soon.
“My priority is to keep businesses open and safe. I want to keep every door opened but to make sure it’s a safe space for people to enter.”
Ms O’Neill also said she had spent the weekend speaking to the Treasury, making the case “very strongly” for financial support for businesses.
“That’s where we would want to be if we could have the resource to be able to do that,” she added.
The vaccine booster programme in Northern Ireland is being accelerated in response to the threat posed by Omicron and has opened up to all over-30s.
[...]
On Monday morning there were 309 Covid positive patients in hospital, of whom 32 were in intensive care.
The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge to New York’s refusal to allow religious exemptions to its mandate that certain healthcare workers in the state be vaccinated against Covid-19.
Acting in two cases, the justices denied emergency requests for an injunction requiring the state to allow religious exemptions while litigation over the mandate’s legality continues in lower courts.
Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have granted the injunction, Reuters reports.
Norway to ban serving of alcohol in hospitality to curb Omicron outbreak
Norway will ban the serving of alcohol in bars and restaurants, impose stricter rules in schools and speed up vaccination as part of new efforts to curb the outbreak of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the government said on Monday.
Remote working will be compulsory where possible, mask mandates will be extended and access to public swimming pools and gyms restricted.
The measures will come into force overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday and are expected to last four weeks.
“For many this will feel like a lockdown, if not of society then of their lives and of their livelihoods,” prime minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told a news conference.
The move comes after the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) warned on Monday that restrictions must be tightened to avoid up to 300,000 people contracting Covid every day.
The institute added that there could be up to 200 hospital admissions daily unless stricter measures were put in place.
On Monday, Norway logged 358 hospitalisations with Covid, a new daily record.
Updated
Night clubs in England will have to ask revellers who prefer using their Covid pass to gain entry instead of doing a lateral flow test to show proof that they have had a booster jab as part of future plans, the British health secretary has said.
Sajid Javid told parliament on Monday that it is the government’s intention to include proof of a booster jab, once all adults have had a chance to get theirs.
He said:
From Wednesday - subject to this House’s approval - you’ll need to show a negative lateral flow test to get into nightclubs and large events, with an exemption for the double vaccinated.
Once all adults have had a reasonable chance to get their booster jab, we intend to change this exemption to require a booster dose.
MPs are due to vote on Tuesday on the requirement for NHS Covid passes showing a person’s vaccine details or test results in England, which would come into effect from Wednesday.
But Javid said it was “misleading” to say MPs are being asked to vote on “vaccine passports”.
He said:
The government has been absolutely clear about when it talks about access to nightclubs or to very large gatherings [...] that the requirement is to take a free lateral flow test and make sure it’s negative.
And if you don’t want to do that then you can prove your vaccine status. It’s up to that individual. That’s not a vaccine passport and the sooner we get rid of this misleading description of what the government is proposing, the better.
The NHS in England was put onto a crisis footing on Monday night as hospitals were told to discharge as many patients as possible ahead of a potential Omicron-driven surge in Covid cases.
Anyone possible should be discharged to care homes, hospices, their own homes and hotels before Christmas in order to free up beds, amid warnings that January could see hospitals caring for even greater numbers of patients than they did at the worst point of the pandemic back in January.
Hospitals and GPs have also been told to scale back the normal services they provide, and limit care to those needing urgent attention, so NHS staff can be freed up to deliver boosters, in a letter from NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard and medical director Prof Stephen Powis, who said the service is now facing a major threat classes as a Level 4 “national incident”.
Hospitals will undertake fewer non-urgent operations but “highest clinical priority patients”, including people with cancer and those who have been waiting a long time, will be given priority.
They have also been told to take ambulance-borne patients into A&E quicker so that paramedics can get back on the road to answer more 999 calls, speed up efforts to bring in nurses from overseas to help tackle the NHS’s lack of staff and send as many patients as possible for surgery at private hospitals.
It is understood that 386,000 people in England booked booster jabs – almost 50,000 an hour – during the course of Monday, the first day after Boris Johnson’s appeal to the public to get fully vaccinated as a matter of urgency. However, sources concede that health service bosses do not know when they will be able to hit the 1m jabs a day the prime minister has said are needed.
Travel restrictions imposed on people coming to the UK should be removed given how widespread the Omicron variant is in the country, the British health secretary suggested on Monday.
PA reports:
Sajid Javid told MPs the justification for having the rules is “minimised” by the new coronavirus variant “spreading rapidly” throughout the country.
He added he has raised the matter with transport ministers and he hopes the government “can act quickly”.
His remarks came after Labour former minister Ben Bradshaw repeated his call for the “very draconian, costly and complex” travel rules introduced only recently to try and stop Omicron arriving in the UK to be dropped.
The UK’s largest airlines and travel companies have also expressed their concerns about the “haphazard and disproportionate” restrictions imposed by the government.
Tougher rules introduced due to Omicron mean everyone entering the UK must have evidence of a negative pre-departure test, and self-isolate until they receive a negative result from a post-arrival test.
People arriving in the UK from the 11 African countries currently on the red list must spend 11 nights in a quarantine hotel at a cost of 2,285 for solo travellers.
Mr Javid told the House of Commons: “I think [Mr Bradshaw] makes a very good point, given that we already know that the Omicron variant is fast becoming the dominant variant in our capital city, spreading rapidly throughout the country, the justification for having those rules is minimised.
“It’s something that I’ve already raised with my colleagues in the Department for Transport and I do hope that we can act quickly.”
[...]
It comes as ministers are set to consider whether to replace hotel quarantine with self-isolation at home for fully vaccinated travellers.
Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the UK Labour party, has backed the government’s moves to ramp up the Covid booster jab programme as he warned the NHS is in danger of being “overwhelmed” by the emergence of the new Omicron variant.
Starmer said that it was essential to put the national interest first as he urged people to “stick to the rules” and get their top-up injections.
Prime minister Boris Johnson announced on Sunday that every eligible adult in England was to be offered a third dose of the vaccine by the end of December.
In a televised address in response, Starmer said ministers should have acted sooner in the face of the threat from the fast-spreading Omicron strain.
He said:
We may not be certain how dangerous it is but we do know that lives are at risk and again our NHS is at risk of being overwhelmed.
If that happens more people will die. So we must do everything that we can to protect the NHS.
Sir Keir said delivering the accelerated booster jab programme would be a “big challenge” but that he was confident the public would rise to meet it.
Time and time again the British people have risen to the challenge so let’s pull together now and do the right thing once more,” he said.
At times like this, we must all put the national interest first and play by the rules.
Of course I understand that sticking to the rules can be inconvenient but stick to the rules we must.
It would be easy to let the festivities we’ve all been looking forward to, divert us from our national duty.
Getting jabbed, wearing masks and working from home if we can really will help prevent infections and help prevent the NHS being overwhelmed.
Nigeria will destroy around 1 million expired Covid-19 vaccines, the head of its primary care agency has said.
Summary
It’s been a quieter day today as Omicron continues its spread around the world, but the blog has still posted about lots of important developments.
- Cyprus introduced new measures to curb a Covid surge, including vaccinations for 11-15 year olds, isolation for cases and close contacts, and bringing forward boosters.
- China reported its first Omicron case in the northern city of Tianjin from an overseas returnee.
- The UK reported its first patient to have died from Omicron, as the government issued a warning to the public not to assume the variant is less dangerous than other strains. Citizens are rushing to get their booster jabs to protect themselves against the new variant, which is poised to replace Delta as the dominant strain in the UK, with queues round the block for vaccination centres and the NHS website crashing under the demand for appointments.
- Norway announced plans to introduce new restrictions, which will be unveiled at a press conference tonight.
Rachel Hall here signing out for the rest of the day. Thanks for following and for sharing your tips and insights with me. The global Covid blog will continue this evening, in Jedidajah Otte’s capable hands.
Updated
Italy reported 98 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday against 66 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 12,712 from 19,215.
Reuters reports:
Italy has registered 134,929 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the ninth-highest in the world. The country has reported 5.24 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 6,951 on Monday, up from 6,697 a day earlier.
There were 60 new admissions to intensive care units, up from 54 on Sunday. The total number of intensive care patients increased to 856 from a previous 829.
Some 313,536 tests for COVID-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 501,815, the health ministry said.
Omicron summary
Reuters have published a handy summary of key developments today in the spread of Omicron.
Europe
- Britain reported at least one death from the Omicron variant, the first publicly confirmed death globally, and urged people to get booster shots.
- Britain’s health secretary said the Omicron variant will become the dominant variant in the capital in the next 48 hours, while Denmark expects it to become dominant this week.
- Norway will further tighten restrictions in a bid to limit an expected surge of Omicron, its prime minister said.
Middle east and Africa
- The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has the world’s lowest vaccination rate at roughly 0.1%, urged people to get inoculated after the Omicron variant was detected there and as cases increase exponentially.
- Around 400,000 Covid-19 vaccines are set to expire in Senegal by end-December, the head of its immunisation programme said, as the country faces logistical problems, short shelf life and vaccine hesitancy.
- Ghana’s main international airport operator said it will fine airlines $3,500 for every passenger they bring in that is not vaccinated or that tests positive on arrival.
- South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who tested positive on Sunday, is still showing mild symptoms, his office said.
- Emma Raducanu, the 19-year-old British champion of the U.S. Open, tested positive and will miss this week’s exhibition event in Abu Dhabi.
Asia-Pacific
- Major Chinese manufacturing province Zhejiang is fighting its first cluster this year, with hundreds of thousands of citizens in quarantine and virus-hit areas suspending business operations, cutting flights and cancelling events.
- Health authorities in Tianjin have detected mainland China’s first Omicron case, state media reported.
- Eight Hong Kong pro-democracy activists were sentenced to up to 14 months in prison for a Tiananmen vigil last year, which the police had banned citing coronavirus restrictions.
- New Caledonia’s pro-independence movement rejected Sunday’s “no” vote, in which over half of voters abstained after France declined to delay the ballot to allow for a mourning period following a surge in infections.
Americas
- The United States crossed 50 million cases on Sunday, according to Reuters tally.
- Catholic pilgrims estimated at over 1.5 million people gathered in Mexico City on Sunday for the annual Virgin of Guadalupe gathering after festivities were cancelled last year.
- A Brazilian Supreme Court justice ruled on Saturday the country must demand proof of vaccination for visitors seeking entry, a day after hackers hit the health ministry website targeting vaccination data.
Australia may manufacture mRNA vaccines for Covid-19 and other diseases by 2024 under an in-principle agreement struck with pharmaceutical giant Moderna, Sarah Martin reports.
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is spreading rapidly and will become the dominant variant in the British capital in the next 48 hours.
The UK’s Health Secretary Sajid Javid told parliament:
“No variant of COVID-19 has spread this fast.”
“While Omicron represents over 20 percent of cases in England, we’ve already seen it rise to over 44% in London and we expect it to become the dominant Covid-19 variant in the capital in the next 48 hours.”
Updated
Denmark has said that Omicron is expected to become the dominant coronavirus variant this week, with new daily cases reaching around 10,000.
The country’s Serum Institute has detected 3,437 Omicron cases since it was first detected in Denmark on 22 November.
In the UK, 54,661 people tested positive for coronavirus on Monday, while there were 38 deaths within 28 days of a positive death, and 926 people were admitted to hospital, official figures show.
The weekly case tally was 9.2% higher than the preceding week, at 363,682.
New measures in Cyprus to curb Omicron spread
Cyprus will start vaccinating children between the ages of 5 to 11 as part of a package of new measures to curb a Covid surge following the first confirmed cases of the omicron variant on the island.
Health Minister Michalis Hadjipantela unveiled the additional measures, which included cutting the mandatory six-week waiting period for booster shots by two weeks, and tighter restrictions for infected individuals and close contacts.
Associated Press reports:
Hadjipantela said anyone diagnosed with the omicron variant or any other new mutation will have to undergo compulsory isolation at their usual residence. Close contacts will be required to undergo a rapid antigen test within 72 hours and a PCR test a week later. Booster shot recipients are exempted.
Meanwhile, the country’s SafePass — or proof of vaccination — will be revoked as of Wednesday for anyone not receiving a booster shot within seven months of completing their inoculation.
Also as of this week, unvaccinated people will be barred from attending christenings, weddings and hotel receptions on top of an earlier decision to exclude them from stadiums, cinemas, theaters and nightclubs.
There are calls in Germany for its vaccine advisory panel to overhaul the way it evaluates Covid-19 shots in a bid to tame soaring infections.
Reuters reports:
The panel of 18 appointees known as STIKO last week recommended vaccinations for limited numbers of children, including those at risk of developing severe Covid-19, but stopped short of a blanket recommendation for 5-11 year olds.
That limited approval, combined with STIKO taking weeks to fall into line with Germany’s regional health ministers widening the eligibility for booster shots from September, has stoked a debate on whether the expert panel needs to be reorganised to speed up decisions to keep up with the of pace of the coronavirus.
In recent weeks, Germany has been among the worst-hit countries in western Europe, with infection rates among school-age children twice as high as the all-age rate.
At least 200,000 Covid-19 vaccines have expired in Senegal without being used in the past two months and another 200,000 will expire at the end of December due to slow demand.
Reuters reports:
African governments have been calling for more Covid-19 vaccines to help catch up with richer regions, where vaccine rollouts have been humming along for more than a year.
Yet, as the pace of supply has picked up in recent weeks some countries have struggled to keep pace. Logistical problems, the short shelf life of vaccines that arrive from donors, and vaccine hesitancy have all kept doses from reaching arms.
Up to 1 million Cpvid-19 vaccines expired in Nigeria last month, Reuters revealed.
“The main problem is vaccine hesitation,” said Ousseynou Badiane, who is in charge of Senegal’s vaccine rollout. “The number of cases is decreasing. They ask: ‘why is it important to get vaccinated if the illness is not there now’?”
Senegal is currently vaccinating between 1,000 and 2,000 people per day, Badiane told Reuters, down from 15,000 during the summer. At this pace, it cannot use all the vaccines it has. Part of the problem is the short shelf life of vaccines that arrive from donors that include the United States and China.
Our science correspondent Linda Geddes has written about whether lateral flow Covid tests can be trusted in the face of the Omicron variant.
She writes that the emergence of Omicron has thrown a spanner in the works:
According to the latest data, just one month after your second Pfizer or AstraZeneca jab, the ability of antibodies to neutralise Omicron is 30 times lower than if you were infected with the Delta variant – reinforcing the message that double-vaccination is no guarantee against infection.
So, if you’re relying on a LFT to guide whether or not it is safe for you to leave the house, the odds of it being wrong just got higher.
You can read her full analysis here:
Updated
Mainland China reports first Omicron case
An update from the Guardian’s China correspondent, Vincent Ni, on the situation in the country.
Mainland China has reported its first Omicron case in the northern city of Tianjin, as the country’s eastern province of Zhejiang has been battling a rise in new infections of Delta variant in recent weeks.
The Chinese authorities reported that the Omicron case was detected from an overseas returnee, who showed no symptoms upon arrival on 9 December. The patient is now being quarantined and treated in a designated hospital.
The first Omicron case in Tianjin came as its nearby Beijing is gearing up for the Winter Olympics, which is to be held in February. The Guardian understands the patient is not related to the Games.
The arrival of Omicron – thought to be a more transmissible variant than Delta - comes as the eastern Zhejiang province – a province with 65 million population – is battling against its first domestic cluster outbreak this year.
Among the 80 new locally transmitted cases with symptoms in mainland China on 12 December, 74 were identified in Zhejiang. In October, the province reported just one local case.
The outbreak in Zhejiang – home to the e-commerce giant Alibaba - has led more than a dozen publicly listed companies to halt production on Monday. Their shares fell sharply as a result.
The companies said that they would comply with the anti-virus control measures imposed by the local government, which will decide when production can be resumed.
Among the worst-affected cities in Zhejiang province is Shaoxing. Since 5 December, 123 of the 192 cases detected in the province were from the city of 5 million. A mass testing programme is under way.
Early this month, the Chinese region of Hong Kong – which runs a separate health system from the Mainland - reported it first cases of Omicron. On Monday, the territory reported two additional cases of the variant, bringing the total to seven.
Hong Kong’s health authorities said that both cases were imported from the UK, where Health Secretary Sajid Javid told MPs on Monday that Omicron now represents 20% of Covid cases in England.
Updated
Reuters has published some facts and figures on the Covax programme, which is backed by the World Health Organization and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (Gavi), and aims to deliver vaccines to poorer countries.
- The programme has delivered more than 610m Covid-19 vaccine doses to 144 countries, Gavi data shows.
- But in September, the 2021 delivery target was cut by nearly 30% to 1.425bn doses.
Updated
China has detected its first Omicron case, in a traveller arriving from overseas in the northern port city of Tianjin, state-run Tianjin Daily reports.
The traveller arrived in the city on 9 December and is being treated in isolation in hospital.
Updated
Hungary has detected its first two cases of Omicron, according to state television.
Updated
Denmark is pushing forward its vaccine programme to enable everyone over 40 to receive a third booster dose of the Covid-19 vaccine to curb the spread of the Omicron variant.
This would mean that everyone aged 40 and above can get the vaccine four and a half months after the second jab, the country’s health authority said.
Reuters reports:
A third dose is “safe and effective” as soon as three months after the initial vaccine course, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said last week.
Denmark is second worldwide only to the UK in confirmed cases of Omicron, with both countries having extensive sequencing of samples to detect variants quickly.
Russia’s parliament is abandoning a draft bill that would have required people travelling by plane or train to present QR codes showing proof of immunity to Covid-19.
Reuters reported that the U-turn came in response to strong public opposition to the proposal, which would effectively have forced people to get vaccinated - or show that they had caught the disease and recovered - in order to travel around the country.
Russia has the third highest death toll from Covid-19 after the United States and Brazil, and the Kremlin has expressed frequent frustration at the slow public uptake of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine.
First Omicron patient dies in the UK
British prime minister Boris Johnson said on Monday the first patient had died after contracting the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, Sky News reports.
The Guardian’s full report is here:
Updated
Norway to tighten Covid restrictions
Norway will further tighten its coronavirus restrictions this week in order to limit the spread of the virus, Reuters reports.
Prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre told Norwegian news agency NTB on Monday.
“The situation is serious. The spread of infection is too high and we have to take action to limit this development.”
Norway is setting record highs both in terms of new Covid-19 infections and hospitalisations, partly due to the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
A news conference will be held at 8pm CET tonight to outline the measures.
Updated
UK booster campaign ramps up
UK vaccination centres have been overwhelmed with demand for the booster vaccination, which is a key tool in the country’s bid to stem a “tidal wave” of Omicron.
The NHS website has crashed under the scale of demand, while long queues have been reported outside vaccinations centres around the country.
On Sunday night, the prime minister Boris Johnson unveiled plans to vaccinate 1 million people per day – higher than any time so far in the campaign – to limit the variant’s rapid spread and avoid reintroducing restrictions that would have onerous implications for society and the economy.
Rachel Hall here taking over from Martin Belam for the rest of the day. Please do get in touch if there’s anything we’ve missed, or if you have any ideas for coverage. You can reach me at rachel.hall@theguardian.com.
The focus on this blog is the biggest global coronavirus stories, but there’s more UK-specific news on our UK Covid blog.
Updated
Today so far
- Thailand will halve to three months the time between administering a second Covid-19 vaccine shot and a booster, health officials have said, to try to strengthen immunity in anticipation of a local spread of the Omicron variant.
- South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa, 69, tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday, though is showing only mild symptoms, the presidency said.
- Indonesia will start administering Covid-19 vaccinations for children aged six to 11 on Tuesday.
- Australia’s most isolated state – Western Australia – will fully reopen its borders on 5 February after almost two years sealed off from Covid and the world. The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, announced on Monday plans to allow interstate and international travellers to enter the state without quarantine from midnight on 5 February, when the state was expected to hit its 90% fully vaccinated target.
- Russia says it has detected Omicron in 16 people who returned from South Africa. The Interfax news agency cited deputy prime minister Tatiana Golikova giving the figures. Pakistan has also detected its first confirmed Omicron case.
- New work from home guidance takes effect in England today, following recently tightened coronavirus guidance. British prime minister Boris Johnson is gambling on an unprecedented ramping up of vaccinations, rolling out 1m booster jabs a day to stem an incoming “tidal wave of Omicron” and avoid imposing further restrictions.
- New Zealand health authorities are investigating claims that a man received up to 10 Covid-19 vaccination doses in one day on behalf of other people, believed to be skirting tough restrictions on the unvaccinated.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, today. You can look forward to the company of Rachel Hall to take you through the rest of the day’s global Covid news. Andrew Sparrow has our combined UK Covid and politics live blog. I will see you tomorrow.
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic the president of one of the largest Native American–run non-profits has warned that health and economic disparities are still seriously affecting Indigenous communities, despite some progress achieved by the Biden administration.
Josh Arce, president of the Partnerships with Native Americans (PWNA), told the Guardian in an interview that challenges affecting Indigenous groups ranged from health inequities such as high rates of diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses to inadequate infrastructure such as running water and reliable electricity. Nearly all of these problems were worsened by the pandemic.
“The issues are, by and large, some of the same issues that we’ve been confronted with but they’ve been really highlighted and exacerbated by Covid-19 throughout the past two and a half years,” said Arce, who added that such challenges “really permeate all aspects of Native life and communities”.
For centuries, Indigenous communities in the US have faced challenges in public health, education, infrastructure and other areas, an aftershock of violent colonization and widespread racism.
While the Biden administration has marked some progress, such as the appointment of Native American Deb Haaland as secretary of the interior, an achievement that Arce noted was critical and brought hope to Native communities, Arce warned that more action is needed to ensure more progress for Indigenous communities in the US.
Read more of Gloria Oladipo’s report here: Native American communities lashed by Covid, worsening chronic inequities
Updated
India has reported its lowest tally of active Covid-19 cases in 18 months, but a sharp drop in the use of protective face masks is causing concern after a rise in the number of infections with the Omicron variant.
Many people have been standing or sitting close to each other without masks, or covering only their chins, at big rallies held by political parties in several states before elections. Something similar happened before the Delta variant ravaged India from April.
Cases have come down sharply since then, with an active Covid-19 total of 91,456 as of early Monday, the lowest in 561 days, according to the health ministry.
Krishna N Das and Chandini Monnappa report for Reuters that cases of the Omicron variant though have risen to at least 36 in India, and accounted for 3% of the virus sequences analysed in the country in the past two weeks, with Delta accounting for the rest. Health authorities have been urging people to cover their mouths in public.
“The falling graph of mask use could cost us,” top Indian health official Vinod Kumar Paul told a recent news briefing. “Mask is a universal vaccine, works on every variant.”
Updated
France will be hit by a sixth Covid-19 wave next month due to the emergence of the new, more contagious, Omicron variant of the disease while the country is still in the midst of the current, Delta-fuelled, fifth wave of the pandemic, according to a leading French hospital executive.
“We haven’t said a word on the sixth wave, which is Omicron, which will come later, in January,” Martin Hirsch, head of Paris’s AP-HP hospitals group, Europe’s largest hospital system, told RTL radio according to Reuters.
Updated
Pakistan has confirmed its first case of the Omicron variant, in the country’s most populous city of Karachi, the country’s National Institute of Health (NIH) said on Monday.
“The NIH has been able to confirm … that a recently suspected sample from Karachi is indeed the ‘Omicron variant’,” the NIH said in a Tweet. “This is the first confirmed case but continued surveillance of suspected samples is in place to identify the trends.”
Authorities in the south Asian nation had begun investigating a first suspected case of the Omicron variant of coronavirus last week, a health ministry official told Reuters on Thursday.
After a provincial official in southern Sindh province initially said the variant had been identified in a private hospital patient, the NIH had then said they were still carrying out sequencing to confirm the case was that of Omicron.
Pakistan this month placed travel restrictions on several countries in southern Africa in the wake of the discovery of the variant.
Updated
Andrew Sparrow has launched our UK Covid and politics live blog here, so he will be picking up further UK developments there.
I’ll be continuing here with the latest coronavirus news from around the globe.
Stephen Reicher, professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews, urged people to “think carefully” about their social contacts in the run-up to Christmas. PA Media quotes the member of government advisory body the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (Spi-B) told ITV’s Good Morning Britain saying:
At the moment, we’re in a situation where the new variant in effect is coming at us like an express train. We’ve got to do something or else we’re in real danger of overwhelming our society and overwhelming the NHS. And there’s so many things you can do. The first thing, and the most obvious thing, is that if you reduce the number of social contacts you have you limit the spread of the infection.
Now, nobody wants to give up their Christmas parties, and nobody wants to miss out on meeting up with people. It’s a little bit like Christmas dinner – if you have too big a Christmas breakfast, then you spoil your appetite for your Christmas dinner, which is what really counts.
And I think, in the same way, we need to think really seriously about our contacts. How important are they? Do we really need them and is it more important to act carefully now so that the contacts we really want and we really need are still happening?
Updated
We won’t get any official figures on the impact of England’s new “work from home if possible” directive on transport for a few hours yet, but ITV’s London political correspondent Simon Harris has just posted a picture of his very empty commute this morning.
Quiet rush hour on the Tube as WFH bites. @itvlondon pic.twitter.com/4ikLL5Vrsb
— Simon Harris (@simonharrisitv) December 13, 2021
Some follow-up on the latest Omicron concerns in Wales, where Cathy Owen reports for WalesOnline that health minister Eluned Morgan has warned new restrictions might be needed. Owen writes:
Speaking on BBC Politics Wales, Ms Morgan said she expected the numbers in Wales to “change very quickly in a very short space of time”.
Asked whether that advice might change, Ms Morgan said: “I think there will come a point where that may be likely to happen. The last thing we want to do is to impose the kind of restrictions that we saw last Christmas unless we absolutely have to.
We know that last Christmas was really disappointing for so many people. That’s not where we want to be. But we will always act in the best interests of the people of Wales.”
Wales’ coronavirus rules are now being reviewed weekly instead of every three weeks in response to the new variant.
In response to Boris Johnson’s televised statement yesterday, first minister of Wales Mark Drakeford said:
This is a fast-moving form of coronavirus, which has the potential to cause a large wave of infections in Wales. This could lead to large numbers of people needing hospital treatment at a time when our NHS is under significant pressure.
Our best defence continues to be vaccination. Emerging evidence shows the booster dose is vital. We are doing everything we can to accelerate our vaccination programme to increase the number of people who will receive their booster in the coming days and weeks. Older people and those at greatest risk are being prioritised at the moment.
Scotland's health secretary: 'inevitable' further Covid measures will be introduced
Scotland’s health secretary Humza Yousaf has been on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland radio programme today, and said that it was “inevitable” that first minister Nicola Sturgeon would announce further anti-Covid measures when she addresses the Scottish parliament tomorrow.
Health Secretary Humza Yousaf says he thinks it’s “inevitable” further covid measures will be announced tomorrow for scotland when the FM addresses parliament #bbcgms
— David Wallace Lockhart (@BBCDavidWL) December 13, 2021
Sturgeon has said that following yesterday’s television address by the UK’s prime minister, Scotland would also be expanding its booster programme. The BBC quote her saying:
I can confirm that urgent work is under way to further accelerate roll out of the booster vaccination programme in Scotland. Scotland already has the highest proportion of the over-12 population protected with booster or third doses of all the UK nations.
Now, however, urgent efforts are being made to step up the pace even further with the aim of offering a booster jag appointment to all eligible adults by the end of this year if possible.
All 30-39 year olds can book their appointment for a COVID-19 vaccine booster from tomorrow.
— Scottish Government (@scotgov) December 12, 2021
Book your appointment ➡️ https://t.co/OYxHi485Ci.
The booking portal will be made available to 18-29 year olds later in the week. pic.twitter.com/0QhCpcLATN
Updated
Thailand to expand booster jab programme in anticipation of Omicron
Thailand will halve to three months the time between administering a second Covid-19 vaccine shot and a booster, a health official said on Monday, to try to strengthen immunity in anticipation of a local spread of the Omicron variant.
Reuters report that Thailand has so far detected eight imported cases of the Omicron variant but has yet to see community transmission, according to its health ministry. Omicron has been reported in dozens of countries.
“Because Omicron is now widespread, the booster third shot would help lessen the severity of symptoms and reduce the death rate,” said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, spokesperson for the government’s Covid taskforce.
Taweesin said recipients of a second shot in August or September could get boosters right away at any vaccine centre nationwide. More than 43 million people – or 60% of people in Thailand – have received two doses of a vaccine so far.
The UK’s health secretary Sajid Javid has been across the airwaves this morning. Another couple of key points to emerge over his appearances.
Firstly he has not been willing to rule out any further measures to attempt to curb the predicted spread of the Omicron variant, including closing schools.
Asked whether he could guarantee schools will not close again, the Health Secretary says "when it comes to our fight against this pandemic, there are no guarantees".
— Theo Usherwood (@theousherwood) December 13, 2021
"What we do know that works is a booster shot of the vaccine."
*Get your booster, schools stay open.
He also suggested that non-clinically trained civil servants could be drafted in to helping with the administration at vaccination centres as the government attempts to roll-out booster jabs at an unprecedented rate.
Civil servants, who haven't had any clinical training, will be brought in for tasks like car-parking duties and to take names.
— Theo Usherwood (@theousherwood) December 13, 2021
The new variant has "thrown us off course" in the battle between the vaccine and the virus, Mr Javid says.
Javid has also defended the planned introduction of vaccine passports, which will be voted on in parliament this week and is due to come into force in England from Wednesday, describing them as a “perfectly reasonable ask”:
Mr Javid says that it is a "perfectly reasonable ask" that if people want to go to a nightclub or another large indoor event then they either show proof of a vaccine or a negative test.
— Theo Usherwood (@theousherwood) December 13, 2021
The Spectator, meanwhile, is suggesting the the current count of Conservative MPs set to vote against further Covid restrictions is up to 71.
🛂Vaccine passport rebellion; John Hayes, Mike Penning and Mark Pawsey take the number to 71.
— The Spectator (@spectator) December 13, 2021
Full list: https://t.co/xzfdG7mk3n
Here’s a reminder of the latest numbers in the UK:
The chief executive of an acute hospital NHS trust in England talks anonymously to us today about the pressures the service is facing:
The strain on hospitals is very visible and quite visceral – you can see ambulances queueing outside and people sleeping on chairs because you can’t get them into cubicles to be seen because too many sick people are waiting for beds. But what we can’t necessarily see is what’s happening to all the people who are at home getting sicker. That’s a very large, invisible problem.
Many of the people in our hospital are very old and very frail. They don’t necessarily need to be in an acute hospital but they need to be in a bed somewhere, with someone looking after them round the clock. Social care is a massive, massive concern; not being able to get these people who are medically fit to be discharged out and home is what blocks up the “front door”, our A&E.
We’re going great guns at treating people on the waiting list. And this winter we’re doing more than ever to protect that, as well as dealing with all the other pressures we have. We are holding beds for people on the waiting list who are having surgery. But that raises really difficult ethical dilemmas. Do you hold an intensive care bed for someone with an aneurysm that could kill them at any minute, or bring in someone who’s just arrived through A&E and needs surgery? Is there a bed for someone who comes in and needs a thrombectomy, a potentially life-saving operation after a stroke?
You can imagine how some of our staff feel about unvaccinated people with Covid eating into our supply of ICU beds when you’re making these decisions, about whether someone with stage 4 cancer or an aneurysm can have an operation.
Read more here: The secret NHS trust boss – the strain on hospitals is visible and visceral
Western Australia to reopen border on 5 February
Australia’s most isolated state will fully reopen its borders on 5 February after almost two years sealed off from Covid and the world.
The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, announced on Monday plans to allow interstate and international travellers to enter the state without quarantine from midnight on 5 February, when the state was expected to hit its 90% fully vaccinated target.
But the premier warned that once the state’s hard border was eased, unvaccinated or “high-risk” arrivals will still be required to quarantine for 14 days – unless they are under 12 or exempt on medical grounds.
“I’m confident that this is the right time and the right way to take this important step,” McGowan said.
“West Australians have lived a normal life inside our Covid-free bubble and nearly 2 million people have done the right thing and gotten vaccinated.
The announcement comes on the same day Scott Morrison said that visa-holding skilled workers and students will be allowed into Australia from Wednesday.
Read more of Narelle Towie’s report here: Western Australia to reopen border on 5 February after almost two years sealed off from the world
Updated
The boss of the organisation which represents NHS trusts said pressure on health services is “not sustainable”. Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, told Sky News a combination of record highs in 999 calls, the second-highest ever number of emergency department admissions, elective procedure backlogs, the extension of the booster campaign, and social care pressure mean the NHS is “busier than its ever been before.”
He said: “That’s obviously a worry because it’s before the traditional winter peak in January and it’s before any cases really coming into hospitals and we are now starting to do in terms of Omicron cases, so we’re already at beyond full stretch, in our view, before either of those things occur so it’s a worrying time, but as you’d expect everybody on the NHS frontline is doing absolutely the best they can to provide the best possible care.”
He added yesterday’s request from the prime minister for “extraordinary effort” comes as staff are “very, very tired”.
PA Media quote Hopson saying: “I think staff are worried, to be frank, that this level of pressure is going to become normalised and it’s not sustainable.”
He also told Sky News a social care staff shortage and the removal of some beds to control coronavirus infections meant hospitals were trying to operate with 30-35% fewer beds.
He said 11% of beds were occupied by patients who were fit to leave hospital but could not be discharged due to a lack of social care staff, meanwhile hospitals were operating at between 94% and 96% capacity.
He explained how the social care sector could not deliver 1.5m hours of at-home care for patients because workers had left to take jobs in retail, logistics, and hospitality because of better pay and sign-on bonuses, revealing a lack of a “sustainable workforce model” in the NHS and social care.
One line of questioning for UK health secretary Sajid Javid this morning has been the effectveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine. PA Media quote him saying it would be “completely unfair” to suggest the AstraZeneca vaccine was not as good as once thought.
Javid was asked on Sky News: “Is it because AstraZeneca wasn’t as good as we initially thought and actually the booster, either Pfizer or Moderna, is what’s helping?”
He replied: “No, I think that would be completely unfair. AstraZeneca has played a phenomenal role in protecting our country.”
He added: “The difference now is... this variant, and different types of vaccines will react in different ways. But whether it’s AstraZeneca you had for your first two doses or its Pfizer or Moderna, you still need a booster shot to be protected against this new variant.”
There’s been some advice from Ami Jones, an intensive care doctor from Wales on BBC television this morning in the UK to avoid sitting in unventilated rooms with people you don’t know.
.@JonesTheBosher intensive care doctor in Wales, tells BBC Breakfast people should not be sitting in unventilated rooms with people they don't know, as the spread of Omicron means if Christmas isn't impacted then January certainly will be.
— Kate Proctor (@Kate_M_Proctor) December 13, 2021
Associated Press writer Justin Spike has an interesting piece this morning looking at the difficulty of reporting on Covid in Hungary, and how some people argue that a paucity of official information is playing into low vaccination rates.
Although Hungary has secured vaccine doses from China and Russia in addition to those provided by the European Union, nearly a third of its adults still have not received a single shot. That hesitancy is something immunologist Andras Falus said can be partly attributed to official communications about the pandemic being “extremely poor, inconsistent and totally incapable of maintaining trust.”
“A significant proportion of the population no longer believes when they receive real data, or resign themselves to not paying attention to the data because they feel almost viscerally that it is inconsistent and unreliable,” said Falus, professor emeritus at Semmelweis University in Budapest.
Illes Szurovecz of the Hungarian news website 444.hu says the information released by the conservative government of Viktor Orbán does not provide a clear picture of how the outbreak is developing and that it is opaque and difficult to follow.
“There’s a lot we don’t know,” Szurovecz said. “If there was more detailed data, people would be better able to judge how severe the pandemic is and how dangerous the virus is. ... Doctors from different parts of the country would be better able to compare their results and care could be improved.”
In lieu of more comprehensive data from official channels, Szurovecz and his colleagues track what few numbers the government releases and create detailed data visualizations on trends in the pandemic. Without that, he said, “it would be virtually impossible to look back in Hungary today and see how the pandemic has gone.”
Lacking official information on how hospitals are faring, many journalists have tried to report from inside Covid wards to get a clearer picture.
But Hungary’s government has barred journalists from entering medical facilities to report on the pandemic, and prohibited medical staff from giving interviews, something journalists say has made it impossible to report on worsening conditions, creating a false picture of the situation’s severity.
Russia says it has detected Omicron in 16 people who returned from South Africa. The Interfax news agency cited deputy prime minister Tatiana Golikova giving the figures this morning.
We know that Russia reported its first two Omicron cases on 6 December. Reuters say that it was not immediately clear if the 16 cases announced this morning included the two reported earlier this month.
The UK government health minister Sajid Javid has defended the government’s work from home if possible advice in England, which comes into effect from today. He said on Sky News:
At the end of the day, as ministers you have to take all this into account, and understand the trade-off. Because when you do take action like here – we’ve asked people to work from home from today – you know, this has a big impact on people’s lives. It’s not just a distraction, it can be really difficult for people to be away from the office, not to have that social interaction, it can impact their life chances, so we wouldn’t take this action lightly at all.
So, based on the advice that we’re getting, but now also on the observed data, we do have two weeks of data where we are seeing this phenomenal growth in infections. It’s already, we estimate, around 40% of infections in London. And so because of this growth rate, and what we now know on the vaccines, that’s why we’ve announced this national mission on the booster programme.
Updated
Sajid Javid: 'we’ve got to act early' over growth in Omicron cases
UK health secretary Sajid Javid has said “we’ve got to act early” over the Omicron variant because of the threat of exponential growth, despite a low-level of hospitalisations and no reported deaths in the UK yet involving the new variant. On Sky News, interviewer Kay Burley put several Covid-sceptic points to him, suggesting that reports so far show that people infected with the Omicron variant only suffer from a mild illness. Javid said:
Omicron has only taken hold in the UK in the last three weeks. It’s already growing at a rate of doubling two to three times two every two to three days. It’s doubling and at that rate you will have a million infections by the end of the month.
If I can explain it this way. With Delta, let’s assume that of all the infections around 2% of those people end up in hospital. Omicron, let’s assume it’s half the severity. That’s just half it. If it’s 1% of a much larger number, you still end up in a lot of hospitalisations.
To put those figures into a bit more context, what Javid is saying is that if you have 1m infections with Omicron, and that leads to 1% of people being hospitalised, you would have 10,000 hospital admissions.
Then the number of infections would double again within three days, and you would have another 20,000 people requiring hospitalisation. The peak level of daily hospitalisations in the UK at the previous height of the pandemic in January 2021 was around 4,500.
Javid went on to say:
If the government just sort of stuck its head in the sand and said, ‘Let’s just wait and see what happens. Let’s wait for the deaths to happen’, by then it would be too late. The infection growth rate for the next couple of weeks would have been baked in. The next three or four doubling times would have been baked in, and then you’d have me here rightly saying ‘Why didn’t you act earlier? Have you not learned any of the lessons about this virus? Have you not learned about how to try to protect people from it and take action in advance?’ And you would rightly have been able to ask me this question.
Updated
The first salvo of UK health secretary Sajid Javid’s interview on Sky News has been a restating of the government’s case to expand the booster programme as set out by the prime minister on TV last night. Javid said:
What we now know about Omicron, first of all, is that it is spreading at a phenomenal rate, something that we’ve never seen before. It’s doubling every two to three days in infections. And that means we’re facing a tidal wave. We are once again in a race between the vaccine and the virus. The second thing that we now know for sure is that the vaccines two doses are not enough, but three doses still provide excellent protection against symptomatic infection. And that’s why the booster programme has become more important than ever.
He also made a direct appeal to viewers
We are throwing everything at it, and can I just please say this to your viewers, please play your part. This could not be more important. We need to win this race against this virus. We’ve never seen this kind of growth before. So please do come forward. Protect yourselves, your loved ones, and your community.
Here is a reminder of the latest situation in the UK. Over the last seven days there have been 360,480 new coronavirus cases recorded in the UK. Cases have increased by 11.9% week-on-week.
There have been 834 deaths recorded with 28 days of a positive Covid test in the last week. Deaths have increased by 0.5% week-on-week.
Hospital admissions have increased by 3.7% week-on-week. At the latest count on the UK government’s own dashboard, there were 7,413 people in hospital in total with coronavirus, of whom 900 are in ventilation beds.
Updated
Hello, it’s Martin Belam here in London taking over from Samantha Lock in Sydney. The UK media round is being done by the health secretary, Sajid Javid, this morning. He is up on Sky News first, so I’ll have the key lines from that shortly.
Updated
New work from home guidance takes effect in England today, following recently tightened coronavirus guidance.
British prime minister Boris Johnson made the announcement at a Downing Street press conference last week, saying people must work from home where possible from Monday.
Although the government instruction that people in England should work from home where possible from Monday is advice and not legally mandatory, organisations across the country are switching to home working where possible.
However, some companies have told workers they can continue to come to the office if required for their mental health.
Updated
Ukraine has just released its daily Covid count.
Another 4,073 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were recorded for Sunday, 12 December.
The country also reported 188 deaths.
Summary
If you’ve just joined us, here is a quick run-down of all the latest Covid developments.
British prime minister Boris Johnson is gambling on an unprecedented ramping up of vaccinations, rolling out 1m booster jabs a day to stem an incoming “tidal wave of Omicron” and avoid imposing further restrictions.
Announcing the booster offensive, Johnson said two doses of vaccine were not enough, but scientists were confident that three would make a huge difference.
The US is approaching the grim milestone of 50m coronavirus cases with a total of 49,921,405 reported since the pandemic began, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. The number of deaths stand at 797,346.
Although infections appeared to be in decline, daily increases have been reported for the past two weeks, with the number of hospitalised Covid patients also rising and up 20%.
States in colder parts of the country are seeing the biggest surge in new infections on a per capita basis, including Vermont, New Hampshire and Michigan.
- Britain faces a “tidal wave” of the Omicron variant and two vaccine doses will not be enough to contain it, prime minister Boris Johnson warned, as he accelerated the nation’s booster rollout programme.
- Russia has recorded a cumulative total number of Covid cases that now exceeds 10 million.
- The European Central Bank’s vice-president Luis de Guindos has tested positive for Covid-19 and is self-isolating, the ECB said.
- The US is set to reach 800,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
- Three doses of a Covid-19 vaccine is the “optimal care” but two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or one of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine remains the US government’s official definition of fully vaccinated, infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said.
- Australia will shorten the wait time for people to receive a Covid-19 booster following a rise in Omicron cases.
- More than a dozen Chinese-listed companies have suspended production in coronavirus-hit parts of China’s eastern Zhejiang province.
- Australians are preparing for quarantine-free travel across most of the country during the Christmas period as the state of Queensland opened its domestic borders to all vaccinated people for the first time in nearly five months.
- South Korea will test artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition to track Covid-19 cases.
- South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa, 69, tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday, though is showing only mild symptoms, the presidency said.
- Indonesia will start administering Covid-19 vaccinations for children aged six to 11 on Tuesday, a health ministry official said.
- New Zealand health authorities are investigating claims that a man received up to 10 Covid-19 vaccination doses in one day on behalf of other people, believed to be skirting tough restrictions on the unvaccinated.
Updated
Some Chinese companies suspend production amid virus outbreak
More than a dozen Chinese-listed companies said they had suspended production in coronavirus-hit parts of China’s eastern Zhejiang province in response to local government’s tightened Covid-19 curbs, Reuters reports. Share prices have also reportedly plunged.
Zhejiang reported a total of 173 locally transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms during the 6-12 December period, official numbers showed on Monday, marking the province’s first domestic cluster outbreak this year. In October, the province reported just one local case.
A slew of companies, including Ningbo Homelink Eco-Itech Co Ltd (301193.SZ), Zhejiang Zhongxin Fluoride Materials Co Ltd (002915.SZ), Zhejiang Jingsheng Mechanical & Electrical Co Ltd (300316.SZ) and Zhejiang Fenglong Electric Co Ltd (002931.SZ), announced the production suspension through exchange filings over the weekend.
Their shares fell sharply in early trading on Monday with some falling more than 7%.
India has just released its daily Covid report.
The country reported 7,350 new cases in the last 24 hours with an active caseload of 91,456; the lowest in 561 days.
Another 202 deaths were also reported.
Australia reports rapid Omicron spread
Super-spreader events in NSW and reinfections in Victoria have health authorities worried as Covid-19 infections continue to grow.
Victoria reported 1,290 new cases and two deaths, while New South Wales recorded 536 new cases, amid increasing numbers of the Omicron variant.
Health authorities in NSW are battling to contain several large transmission events, including cases of the rapidly spreading Omicron variant – with 64 cases of the new strain now recorded in the state.
Of the 536 new cases announced in the state on Monday, nine were confirmed to have the Omicron variant, with NSW Health saying “more are expected as results of genomic testing are confirmed”.
Read the full story here.
Germany is reporting an additional 21,743 new daily Covid cases and 116 deaths, according to recently published figures from the Robert Koch Institute.
The numbers are a significant drop from previous days, with 39,585 cases reported on 10 December 45,460 cases on 9 December.
Covid infections have been steadily decreasing in the European nation since new lockdowns were introduced.
Updated
South Africa has reported an additional 37,875 new coronavirus cases, which includes 19,840 retrospective cases and 18,035 new cases, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).
In the past 24 hours a total of 18,035 positive Covid-19 cases and 21 Covid-related deaths were reported.
The total number of fatalities in the country currently stands at 90,137.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday, is currently in self-isolation in Cape Town and has delegated all responsibilities to deputy president David Mabuza for the next week.
Papua New Guinea could be breeding ground for new Covid variants, experts warn
Experts have warned that the next variant of Covid-19 to sweep the world could emerge on Australia’s doorstep, due to incredibly low rates of vaccination rates in Papua New Guinea.
Papua New Guinea is Australia’s closest neighbour, and at its nearest point is just 4km from Australian territory in the Torres Strait. At various points in the pandemic there have been fears that travellers from PNG could bring the virus to Australia.
Adrian Prouse, head of international humanitarian programs at the Australian Red Cross, said:
I’m worried that PNG is the next place where a new variant emerges.”
“In PNG less than 5% [of the adult population is vaccinated], in Indonesia, just under one-third. Two countries right on our doorstep with significant challenges in getting vaccines into arms.”
Stefanie Vaccher, an epidemiologist with the Burnet Institute who has been based in PNG since last year, echoed this concern.
“In populations that have low rates of vaccination coverage, there are more opportunities for the virus to spread and mutate. In PNG, where less than 4% of the population are vaccinated, there are a lot of opportunities for the virus to mutate and spread.”
Read the full story here.
Canada will start recognising molecular Covid-19 tests conducted at an accredited lab in South Africa for residents returning home, dropping travel restrictions previously introduced to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant.
Ottawa faced pressure from doctors, stranded passengers and the World Health Organization to reverse requirements that travellers from 10 southern African countries get molecular PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests in a third country before returning to Canada.
Canada has now dropped the need to obtain a pre-departure negative Covid-19 PCR test from a third country, according to a travel advisory issued on Saturday.
The exemption will be in place until 7 January 2022 and will apply to all indirect flights departing from South Africa to Canada, the advisory added.
There is no change to Canada’s ban on all foreign travellers from 10 African countries.
Here’s a quick snapshot of the latest Omicron report from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Based on current limited evidence Omicron appears to have a growth advantage over Delta. It is spreading faster than Delta in South Africa where Delta circulation was low, but also appears to spread more quickly than Delta in other countries where the incidence of Delta is high.
Given the current available data, it is likely that Omicron will outpace the Delta variant where community transmission occurs.
While preliminary findings from South Africa suggest it may be less severe than Delta and all cases reported in the EU/EEA to date have been mild or asymptomatic, it remains unclear to what extent Omicron may be inherently less virulent. More data are needed.
There are limited available data, and no peer-reviewed evidence, on vaccine efficacy or effectiveness to date for Omicron. Preliminary evidence suggests a reduction in vaccine efficacy against infection and transmission associated with Omicron.”
Updated
Here’s an interesting story out of New Zealand today.
Health authorities are investigating claims that a man received up to 10 Covid-19 vaccination doses in one day on behalf of other people, believed to be skirting tough restrictions on the unvaccinated.
The Ministry of Health said it was taking the matter seriously. “We are very concerned about this situation and are working with the appropriate agencies,” its Covid-19 vaccination and immunisation spokesperson, Astrid Koornneef, said.
Local news outlets report the man is believed to have visited several immunisation centres and was paid to get the doses. In New Zealand vaccines can either be booked through a website, via a doctor, or people can turn up to walk-in centres. To be administered a vaccine, a person must provide the health care worker with their name, date of birth and physical address, but no further identification is required.
Read the full story from our reporter, Eva Corlett, on the ground in New Zealand.
Updated
US Covid cases surpass 50 million
The United States surpassed 50 million coronavirus cases on Sunday, according to a Reuters tally.
After about two months of declining infections, the United States has reported daily increases for the past two weeks, driven by the more easily transmitted Delta variant.
States in colder parts of the country are seeing the biggest surge in new infections on a per capita basis, including Vermont, New Hampshire and Michigan.
The number of hospitalised Covid patients is rising as well, up 20% since the Thanksgiving holiday at the end of November.
Over the past month, deaths have increased by 4.6%, with the country’s death toll surpassed 800,000.
Nearly half of US states have detected cases of the Omicron variant, but the Delta variant still accounts for 99% of current Covid cases, CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky said.
Updated
Speaking of South Korea, the south Asian country has just released their daily Covid numbers.
A further 5,817 coronavirus cases were recorded over the past 24 hours, with 40 confirmed deaths.
A total of 83.7 % of the eligible population has at least one Covid vaccine and 81.2 % are fully vaccinated, according to ministry of health data.
South Korea to test AI-powered facial recognition to track Covid cases
South Korea will soon roll out a pilot project to use artificial intelligence, facial recognition and thousands of CCTV cameras to track the movement of people infected with the coronavirus, Reuters reports.
The nationally funded project in Bucheon, one of the country’s most densely populated cities on the outskirts of Seoul, is due to become operational in January, a city official told the news agency.
The system uses an AI algorithms and facial recognition technology to analyse footage gathered by more than 10,820 CCTV cameras and track an infected person’s movements, anyone they had close contact with, and whether they were wearing a mask, according to a 110-page business plan from the city submitted to the Ministry of Science and ICT (Information and Communications Technology), and provided to Reuters by a parliamentary lawmaker critical of the project.
The Bucheon official said the system should reduce the strain on overworked tracing teams in a city with a population of more than 800,000 people, and help use the teams more efficiently and accurately. The system can reportedly track up to ten people in five to ten minutes, cutting the time spent on manual work that takes around half an hour to one hour to trace one person.
South Korea already has a high-tech contact tracing system that harvests credit card records, cellphone location data and CCTV footage, among other personal information.
Bucheon mayor Jang Deog-cheon argued that the system would make tracing faster.
“It sometimes takes hours to analyse a single CCTV footage. Using visual recognition technology will enable that analysis in an instant,” he said on Twitter.
The Ministry of Science and ICT said it has no current plans to expand the project to the national level. It said the purpose of the system was to digitise some of the manual labour that contact tracers currently have to carry out.
South African president tests positive for Covid
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday, but was showing mild symptoms, the presidency said.
“The President started feeling unwell after leaving the State Memorial Service in honour of former Deputy President FW de Klerk in Cape Town earlier today,” the statement said.
“The President, who is fully vaccinated, is in self-isolation in Cape Town and has delegated all responsibilities to Deputy President David Mabuza for the next week,” it added.
Hello it’s Samantha Lock with you as we go through all the latest coronavirus developments.
The Omicron variant has now spread to 63 countries with faster transmission noted in South Africa and the UK, the World Health Organization has said.
Britain faces a “tidal wave” of the Omicron variant of coronavirus and two vaccine doses will not be enough to contain it, prime minister Boris Johnson has warned, as he accelerated the booster rollout programme, bringing forward a target to give over-18s a booster jab by one month to the end of December.
“No one should be in any doubt: there is a tidal wave of Omicron coming,” he said in a televised address, after the country’s medical advisers raised the Covid Alert Level due to a “rapid increase” in infection from the variant.
“I’m afraid it is now clear that two doses of vaccine are simply not enough to give the level of protection we all need,” Johnson added.
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday and is receiving treatment for mild symptoms, the presidency said.
“The President started feeling unwell after leaving the State Memorial Service in honour of former Deputy President FW de Klerk in Cape Town earlier today,” the statement said.
“The President, who is fully vaccinated, is in self-isolation in Cape Town and has delegated all responsibilities to Deputy President David Mabuza for the next week,” it added.
Here is a snapshot of the latest Covid developments:
- The WHO says the Omicron variant is more transmissible than the Delta strain and reduces vaccine efficacy but causes less severe symptoms according to early data.
- British prime minister Boris Johnson launched an “Omicron emergency booster national mission” to protect the NHS and patients, ramping up vaccinations and rolling out 1m booster jabs a day.
- The UK recorded 48,854 new Covid cases and 52 additional deaths, raising the Covid alert level from 3 to 4.
- The UK also confirmed an additional 1,239 Omicron cases, marking the biggest daily rise to date with the total number of confirmed cases 3,137.
- America’s top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, said that Omicron “clearly has a transmission advantage” over previous Covid strains and stepped up calls for Americans to get booster shots as the new variant spread to at least 25 states.
- Austria has ended lockdown restrictions for vaccinated people across most of the country, three weeks after it was imposed. However, more than 25,000 demonstrators turned out in several cities to protest against the country’s compulsory vaccination plan, forcing citizens to be jabbed or face fines from February.
- Vaccinated people who are identified as a contact of somebody who has tested positive for Covid-19 should take an NHS rapid lateral flow test every day for a week, the UK government announced.
- Russia’s registered Covid cases passed the 10 million mark today, after nearly 30,000 cases were reported in the last 24 hours.
- Scotland aims to offer booster jabs to all eligible adults by the end of the year.
