Summary
- Nightclubs in France will be ordered to close for four weeks from Friday to counter a Covid surge that has put hospitals under strain.
- New Covid restrictions are to be introduced in Norway after a recent increase in infections.
- Britain’s health minister said there is now community transmission of the Omicron variant across regions of England.
- The Czech government will order Covid-19 vaccinations for people working in hospitals and nursing homes as well as police officers, soldiers and some other professions and all citizens aged 60 and older.
- A new range of pandemic restrictions will be imposed in Poland this week.
- Italy tightened restrictions on people still not vaccinated, limiting their access to an array of places and services.
- Children in the Philippines’ capital Manila returned to school after a near two-year suspension.
- India’s cases of the Omicron variant rose to 21 over the weekend, officials said, while Nepal and Thailand detected their first cases.
- South Africa is preparing hospitals for more admissions, as the Omicron variant pushes the country into a fourth wave of infections.
- Austria’s general lockdown will end on 11 December for those who have been vaccinated.
- All private employers in New York City will have to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for their workers.
Combining a first dose of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine with a second dose of either the Moderna or the Novavax jabs results in far higher levels of neutralising antibodies and T-cells compared with two doses of the AstraZeneca jab, a study has found.
The finding has important implications for lower-income countries that have not yet completed their primary vaccination campaigns, as it suggests you do not need access to mRNA vaccines – and therefore ultra-cold storage facilities – to trigger an extremely potent Covid-19 vaccine response.
The strongest T-cell response of all was generated by a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine followed by a dose of the Novavax vaccine – both of which can be stored in a standard refrigerator.
Read the full story from our reporter Linda Geddes here.
Updated
France to shut nightclubs over Covid surge
Nightclubs in France will be ordered to close for four weeks from Friday to counter a Covid surge that has put hospitals under strain, the prime minister said on Monday.
“We will close the nightclubs for the next four weeks. This measure will apply from next Friday until the beginning of January,” Jean Castex, who emerged from quarantine last week after contracting the virus, said.
“We have all had a tendency to lower our guard” in recent weeks, he added.
“The situation demands an individual as well as a collective effort,” Castex said in a televised address.
A raft of new measures will be coming into force according to a statement from the ministry of health.
France has confirmed only 25 cases of the new Omicron variant but officials say the number could jump significantly in the coming weeks.
On Sunday, the health ministry reported more than 42,000 cases in the previous 24 hours, and more than 11,000 patients in hospital - the highest number since August - with 2,000 in intensive care.
Hello it’s Samantha Lock joining you as my colleague Jedidajah Otte takes a break.
As I’m reporting to you from Sydney here are some Covid figures just released from Australia this morning.
The state of New South Wales recorded 260 new Covid-19 cases and two deaths, while Victoria recorded 1,185 new Covid-19 cases and seven deaths over the past 24 hours.
The Victorian ombudsman has also handed down her finding on the Victorian Covid-19 border permit system, describing it as ‘unjust’ and ‘inhumane’.
The Queensland border is opening next Monday, with the state set to reach 80% double vaccination sometime this week.
State premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told ABC that once the Queensland border is open, it’s open for good.
Austria’s general lockdown will end on 11 December for those who have been vaccinated, health minister Wolfgang Mückstein said on Monday evening, but will continue for those who have not been inoculated against Covid-19.
The president of intensive care physicians, Walter Hasibeder, expects that it will take another week until the number of Covid patients in intensive care units begins to drop.
But the situation would remain critical until only 10% of the intensive care places are occupied by Covid patients, Hasibeder said. Currently, that figure stands at 30%.
On Monday, Austria recorded 4,625 new infections and 48 deaths from the virus. A further 15 suspected cases of Omicron were also reported in Vienna on Monday, Der Standard newspaper reported.
Updated
Brazil has recorded 4,385 new Covid-19 infections in the past 24 hours, as well as 108 further virus-related deaths, the health ministry said on Monday.
The South American country has now registered 22,147,476 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 615,744, according to ministry data, in the world’s third worst outbreak outside the US and India and its second deadliest.
With 65% of the population fully vaccinated, the rolling 14-day average of Covid deaths has fallen to 211 per day, compared with a toll of almost 3,000 a day at the peak of the pandemic in April, Reuters reports.
Updated
Healthcare disruptions linked to the Covid-19 pandemic led to malaria killing 69,000 more people in 2020 than in the previous year, but a worst-case scenario was averted, the World Health Organization said on Monday.
In total, over 627,000 people globally – most of them babies in the poorest parts of Africa – were killed by malaria last year, compared with 558,000 in 2019, the WHO said in its annual malaria report. The number is far higher than the 224,000 people reported to have died from Covid in Africa since the start of the pandemic.
About two-thirds of the additional malaria deaths in 2020 were due to coronavirus restrictions disrupting prevention, diagnosis and treatment of malaria, the WHO said.
But efforts to maintain health services in the face of the challenges meant Sub-Saharan Africa did not see the doubling of malaria deaths in 2020 that the WHO had warned was a possibility, Reuters reports.
Instead, the number of deaths in the region rose 12% compared with 2019, according to WHO data.
Pedro Alonso, director of the WHO’s global malaria programme, said:
Thanks to urgent and strenuous efforts, we can claim that the world has succeeded in averting the worst-case scenario of malaria deaths.
Experts hope the fight against malaria might gain considerable ground following the WHO’s recommendation in October that RTS,S, or Mosquirix – a vaccine developed by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline – should be widely given to children in Africa.
Updated
The US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) has urged Americans to avoid travel to France, Portugal, Tanzania and Jordan after their Covid-19 risk level was elevated to “very high”.
The four countries have been added to a list now comprising 83 countries around the globe that Americans are advised to avoid travelling to.
Since today, all air travellers, regardless of citizenship or vaccination status, have to show a negative pre-departure Covid-19 test taken the day before they board their flight to the US, after the CDC shortened the timeline for required testing for all international air travellers last week.
Former UK prime minister Theresa May has urged the government to find ways for the population to learn to “live with Covid” rather than respond to new variants by “stopping and starting sectors of our economy”.
May and other senior Conservative MPs on the backbenches questioned the government’s response to the Omicron variant in the House of Commons on Monday.
May said:
The early indications of Omicron are that it is more transmissible but potentially leads to less serious illness than other variants.
I understand that would be the normal progress of a virus. Variants will continue to appear year after year.
When is the government going to accept that learning to live with Covid, which we will all have to do, means we will almost certainly have an annual vaccine and that we cannot respond to new variants by stopping and starting sectors of our economy which leads to businesses going under and jobs being lost?
Conservative former cabinet minister Theresa Villiers criticised the government’s decision to impose “new expensive requirements” for international travel, while former transport secretary Chris Grayling urged health secretary Sajid Javid to “face down the more conservative elements of the scientific community, do the right thing and keep the restrictions as minimal as possible”.
Summary
- The Omicron variant of coronavirus is now circulating within the community in the UK, according to the health secretary, Sajid Javid. He told MPs “multiple regions of England” were seeing cases not linked to international travel. But he added that none of the 336 people with a confirmed case of Omicron had been admitted to hospital.
- New Covid restrictions are to be introduced in Norway after a recent increase in infections, the country’s health minister has said. “These measures will be felt in our daily lives,” Ingvild Kjerkol said, adding that the new measures had become necessary because of a rise in infections and the uncertainty of the potential impact of Omicron.
- All private employers in New York City will have to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for their workers, the city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, has announced. The vaccine mandate for private businesses will take effect on 27 December. De Blasio also announced an extension to the city’s Covid passports to all people aged over five years old.
- A sweeping vaccine mandate is to be imposed in the Czech Republic, with care workers, nurses, doctors, police and soldiers, and anyone else aged over 60, to be ordered to take a coronavirus vaccine. “Other countries are taking this path,” The health minister, Adam Vojtech, said. “It is a trend that will prevail across Europe.”
- A vaccine mandate for public sector workers in Slovenia was struck down as unconstitutional by the country’s highest court. “Such a condition is comparable with obligatory vaccination, which is something that first requires a change in the law on infectious diseases,” the constitutional court said of the mandate, which the government had aimed to impose on 1 October.
- A new package of pandemic restrictions will be imposed in Poland this week, the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has said. “Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow at the latest, we will present a second (package) related to the Christmas situation, and as reaction to the virus’ Omicron mutation,” Morawiecki said. Vaccine mandates would be included, he said.
- An epidemiologist who has been a prominent voice of caution in handling the Covid pandemic has been appointed minister for health in Germany. Olaf Scholz, who is to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor, picked Karl Lauterbach for the closely watched appointment, according to the US-based news agency the Associated Press.
- Croatia, Nepal, Russia and Argentina were among the countries reporting their first cases of Omicron. In Thailand a health official said on Monday that the country’s first suspected case of the new variant had been detected but authorities would withhold confirmation ahead of further test results. The variant has also been found in at least 16 US states.
- Nigerian high commissioner to the UK, Sarafa Tunji Isola, described a ban on travel between the two countries as “travel apartheid”. “We’re not dealing with an endemic situation, we are dealing with a pandemic situation, and what is expected is a global approach, not selective,” Isola said. “Omicron is classified as a mild variant – no hospitalisation, no death.”
- South Africa is preparing its hospitals for further admissions, as the Omicron variant pushes the country into a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections, the president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said in a statement on Monday. Ramaphosa said Omicron appeared to be dominating new infections in most provinces and urged more people to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
That’s it from me, Damien Gayle, for today.
Twenty five cases of the Omicron variant have so far been identified in France, the health minister has said.
Olivier Veran said 21 cases were imported from people returning from countries in southern Africa, and four were the result of local infection. The Omicron variant seems much more contagious than the Delta variant, he added.
Veran also said that France is aiming to start offering Covid-19 vaccination to all children aged five to 11 from 20 December, provided health authorities give the go-ahead.
No one with Omicron in the UK has needed hospital - Javid
None of the 336 people with a confirmed case of Omicron in the UK have been admitted to hospital, according to the health secretary.
Conservative MP Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) asked Sajid Javid in the Commons: “How many of those who have tested positive in the UK are ill?”
Sajid Javid said: “The number of confirmed cases in the UK is 336 - they are all by definition infected.
He added: “Some may be asymptomatic, others will be feeling ill. None of them, so far, as far as I am aware, have been hospitalised.”
Updated
Looks like it’s going to be a grim festive season for nightclubbers in France this year. I’ll bring you more on this as it comes in.
#BREAKING France orders nightclubs to close for four weeks over Covid surge: PM pic.twitter.com/pW51bco1Xc
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) December 6, 2021
Updated
Omicron circulating in UK, says health secretary
The Omicron variant of coronavirus is now circulating within the community in the UK, according to the health secretary.
Sajid Javid told MPs on Monday that “multiple regions of England” were seeing cases of the variant that were not linked to international travel. He could not guarantee the variant would not “knock us off our road to recovery”, as the “the window between infection and infectiousness may be shorter for the Omicron”.
Javid told the Commons there were now 261 confirmed Omicron cases in England, 71 in Scotland, and four in Wales. He said:
We are learning more about this new variant all the time.
Recent analysis from the UK Health Security Agency suggests that the window between infection and infectiousness may be shorter for the Omicron variant than for the Delta variant, but we don’t yet have a complete picture of whether Omicron causes more severe disease or indeed how it interacts with the vaccines.
We can’t say for certain at this point whether Omicron has the potential to knock us off our road to recovery.
The UK government said that as of 9am on Monday, there had been a further 51,459 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases across the country, and a further 41 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus.
Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have now been 170,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
Updated
A sweeping vaccine mandate is to be imposed in the Czech Republic, with care workers, nurses, doctors, police and soldiers, and anyone else aged over 60, to be ordered to take a coronavirus vaccine.
The health minister Adam Vojtech, who spoke to reporters via videolink from his own Covid self-isolation, said his ministry would issue a decree adding the Covid-19 shot to other compulsory vaccinations this week.
“Other countries are taking this path,” Vojtech said. “It is a trend that will prevail across Europe.”
Those who refuse would be barred from working in the selected professions, Reuters quoted him as saying.
Vojtech said he would go ahead of the decree in spite of the likelihood that it will be curtailed by a new centre-right government which may take power as soon as next week.
A senior member of the incoming coalition said on the weekend that the future cabinet would scrap the mandate for citizens over 60, but may uphold the obligation for selected professions.
Only 59.6% of Czechs are vaccinated, compared to an EU average of 66.4%, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
Early findings from studies carried out in the UK suggest that one in eight people hospitalised with Covid may have suffered heart damage, according to a report in the Telegraph.
One study led by the University of Glasgow analysed a random sample of 161 recovering patients, 90% of whom had needed hospital treatment, scanning their hearts, lungs and kidneys a month or two after they had been discharged.
“About one patient in eight had evidence of heart inflammation,” Colin Berry, a professor of cardiology, told the Telegraph. “That is a high incidence.” Berry stressed that the research had not yet been peer reviewed.
A second study, at Oxford university, also found inflammation of organs in people who had needed hospital treatment for Covid. Dr Betty Raman, a British Heart Foundation clinical research fellow, used magnetic resonance imaging to study the brains, hearts, livers and kidneys of volunteers for post-hospitalisation studies.
Raman’s study was ongoing, but she told the Telegraph a preliminary assessment of 58 patients had found “inflammation of multiple organs, the heart and vascular system in particular”.
This is Damien Gayle back at the helm.
In Australia, an alliance of legal services have urged the New South Wales government to to stop chasing people to pay Covid fines, saying have been issued incorrectly and have disproportionately hurt Indigenous Australians, homeless groups and people living with a disability, reports Christopher Knaus.
Thailand reports first suspected case of omicron
A Thai health official said Monday that the country’s first suspected case of the new omicron variant had been detected but authorities would withhold confirmation ahead of further test results.
Head of the department of medical sciences, Supakit Sirilak, said at a daily press briefing reported by Reuters that the “likely” case of the omicron variant had been identified in an American businessman who tested positive on 1 December after entering Thailand from Spain.
“The analysis result confirms a 99.92% chance of it being the omicron variant. The ministry and private laboratories are now running parallel tests and we will know the result today. Initially, it is likely to be the first omicron case of Thailand,” Supakit said at the briefing.
Updated
Nearly 70 nurses and doctors working in the intensive care unit at a Spanish hospital have tested positive for Covid-19 after attending a Christmas party, health authorities said on Monday.
Reuters reports:
Sixty-eight medics at the University Regional Hospital in Malaga had been diagnosed with the coronavirus, the Andalusian regional government said.
Health authorities said they were investigating the source of the infection but added all 68 attended a Christmas party on 1 December at which 173 people were present. Another possible source of the infection could have been a large meal for hospital staff, authorities said.
Updated
In the UK, 51,459 people tested positive for coronavirus on 5 December, according to official figures.
This represents a 9% rise on last week. There were 41 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, a fall of 0.2%.
Updated
Switzerland has released longer-term figures showing that there were 5,928 coronavirus-related hospital admissions between the start of its vaccination campaign in December 2020 and August 2021.
German-language news source 20 Minuten reports that 14 deaths were recorded among those who were double vaccinated, and 437 among unvaccinated patients.
Italy reported 92 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday against 43 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 9,503 from 15,021.
Reuters reports:
Italy has registered 134,287 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 5.12 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 5,879 on Monday, up from 5,597 a day earlier.
Rachel Hall here looking after the blog - please do send over any tips, ideas or thoughts to rachel.hall@theguardian.com.
Updated
Norway to introduce new Covid restrictions
New Covid restrictions are to be introduced in Norway after a recent increase in infections, the country’s health minister has said.
“Tomorrow, we will come up with a new measure because we have got a situation with a lot of infection with the Delta variant. In addition, we have the Omicron variant that spread quickly,” Ingvild Kjerkol told NRK, Norway’s public broadcaster, on Monday, according to The Local.
“These measures will be felt in our daily lives,” she said.
New and tighter pandemic restrictions are also expected to come into force in Poland this week.
Updated
Another announcement by Bill de Blasio this morning, which we underplayed a little in our earlier post, is that all children aged over five will soon need vaccine passports to enter restaurants, theatres, museums or arcades in New York City.
Speaking on MSNBC, de Blasio announced that from 14 December, children between five and 11 will need to have had at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine to enter a range of public locations in the city.
It will be a serious impediment to many youngsters. Just 20% of people in that age group are vaccinated, Newsweek quoted de Blasio’s press secretary, Danielle Filson, as saying.
The “Key to NYC” coronavirus vaccine passport programme began in August, with adults initially required to show proof of one dose of vaccine to enter a range of establishments. Under the new rules, anyone aged over 12 will now need to have have received two doses of coronavirus vaccine to be eligible for a pass.
A vaccine mandate for public sector workers in Slovenia has been struck down as unconstitutional by the country’s highest court.
“Such a condition is comparable with obligatory vaccination, which is something that first requires a change in the law on infectious diseases,” the constitutional court said, according to the national STA news agency.
The government had wanted to impose the mandate from 1 October, but the court blocked enforcement of the rule until it had made its ruling.
Government officials were not immediately available for comment, Reuters said. Slovenia has so far fully vaccinated some 55% of its two million inhabitants, below the European Union average.
Slovenia had recorded a resurgence of daily Covid cases since October. But in recent days the the number of new daily infections has been falling. On Sunday, Slovenia reported 775 new cases, down from 1,116 on Saturday.
New York City to mandate vaccines for private sector workers
All private employers in New York City will have to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for their workers, the city’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, has announced.
The vaccine mandate for private businesses will take effect on 27 December. De Blasio said it is is aimed at preventing a spike in Covid infections during the holiday season and the colder months.
“We in New York City have decided to use a preemptive strike to really do something bold to stop the further growth of Covid and the dangers it’s causing to all of us,” de Blasio said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe programme, according to the Associated Press.
“All private-sector employers in New York City will be covered by this vaccine mandate as of 27 December.”
The city already has vaccine mandates for hospital and nursing home workers and city employees including teachers, police officers and firefighters, as well as a separate mandate for employees of private and religious schools that was announced last week.
De Blasio said he expects the new mandate to survive any legal challenges, despite a temporary block issued by federal courts on an attempt by the president, Joe Biden, to impose a similar mandate nationwide.
Current New York City Covid-19 rules also include at least one vaccine dose for indoor restaurant dining, entertainment venues and fitness centres.
Under new mandates for indoor dining, entertainment and gyms, two shots will be required for people over 12. One shot will be required for children aged five to 11, who are not covered by the current mandate, de Blasio said.
Updated
A coronavirus lockdown in place in Slovakia should be extended by a week, the country’s health minister has said.
The minister, who was not named by Reuters, reportedly said he would ask the country’s cabinet to approve the extension of the lockdown until 16 December.
In the past few weeks Slovakia has endured one of the world’s worst waves of coronavirus pandemic. A lockdown shutting most shops and services was imposed on 25 November.
Updated
A primary school in Scotland has closed for five days after a number of Covid cases among staff believed to be linked to the Omicron variant.
Todholm Primary in Paisley, Renfrewshire, closed on Monday, after an undisclosed number of staff were identified as close contacts of people infected with the latest variant of the coronavirus.
A spokesperson for Renfrewshire county council told the Daily Record:
Todholm primary school will temporarily close tomorrow - Monday, December 6 for 5 days. This follows NHS Test and Protect contact tracing that requires members of the school community to self-isolate, including school staff.
This is due to Covid-19 cases linked to the school confirmed as or likely to be the new Omicron variant. Due to the number of staff asked to self-isolate we have taken the decision to close the school and to switch to remote learning from Monday morning.
The decision has been taken as we are unable to maintain appropriate staffing levels and is not a public health matter.
Following identification of cases, a further risk assessment was carried out by public health and environmental health teams and all appropriate health and safety measures were found to be robust.
Croatia has also reported its first cases of Omicron, joining Nepal, Russia and Argentina in confirming the new variant within their borders.
The country’s public health agency said it had detected two cases.
“We are not sure about the source of the infection as neither of those two people had travelled abroad. We believe they got infected at a business meeting at which both participated,” said Bernard Kaic, an epidemiologist.
Guests from abroad had been present at the business meeting, he added.
Pandemic disruptions led to jump in malaria deaths - WHO
Disruptions in services led to tens of thousands more deaths from malaria in 2020, the World Health Organization has said.
The UN health agency said Covid-19 had reversed progress against the mosquito-borne disease, which was already plateauing before the pandemic struck. But, it added, urgent action had averted a far worse outcome.
According to the WHO’s latest World Malaria Report, there were an estimated 241m malaria cases worldwide in 2020 - 14m more than a year earlier. The estimated death toll from the disease rose 69,000, to 627,000.
About two thirds of the additional deaths were linked to disruptions in the provision of malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment during the pandemic, the WHO said.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for about 95% of all malaria cases and 96% of all deaths. About 80% of deaths in the region were among children aged under five.
But the agency stressed that the situation “could have been far worse”, pointing to its projection early in the pandemic that service disruptions could cause malaria deaths to double.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said: “Even before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, global gains against malaria had levelled off.
“Thanks to the hard work of public health agencies in malaria-affected countries, the worst projections of COVID’s impact have not come to pass. Now, we need to harness that same energy and commitment to reverse the setbacks caused by the pandemic and step up the pace of progress against this disease.”
Updated
Eighteen out of 19 Covid samples sequenced in Namibia have turned out to be the new Omicron variant, the country’s health ministry has said.
The finding suggests the variant, first flagged by neighbouring South Africa and Botswana late last month and since labelled “of concern” by the World Health Organization, is also highly prevalent in the southern African country.
The Omicron cases were detected predominantly in and around Windhoek, the capital. The region that recorded 536 out of 695 new infections countrywide in the first five days of December.
The other non-Omicron sample sequenced among the 19 was the Delta strain. Scientists around the world are trying to establish the impact of the new variant on contagion, disease severity and vaccine resistance.
“We must remain on guard while we wait for further investigation about this variant,” Namibia’s health ministry said in a statement, according to Reuters.
Updated
Poland to introduce new Covid restrictions
A new package of pandemic restrictions will be imposed in Poland this week, the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has said.
“Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow at the latest, we will present a second (package) related to the Christmas situation, and as reaction to the virus’ Omicron mutation because the situation is indeed not looking good … We have many deaths,” Morawiecki told a news conference, according to Reuters.
“We will strengthen the vaccination mechanism, making it compulsory for some jobs. We are considering this and we will certainly discuss stronger restrictions in certain places for people who are not vaccinated.”
Current pandemic restrictions in Poland include limits on the number of people allowed into public venues, such as restaurants, bars and shops, the wearing of masks in enclosed spaces, and curbs on travel to seven African countries – a recently introduced response to the emergence of the Omicron variant.
The health ministry reported 13,250 new coronavirus infections on Monday and 25 Covid-related deaths, but numbers are usually lower after the weekend. So far, 54% of Poles are fully vaccinated, lower than the 66.4% average in the European Union.
Updated
Coroners in England have said lessons must be learned from failings made by overstretched services that struggled to adapt during the Covid pandemic, as details of inquests into deaths only now emerge, write Guardian reporters Sarah Marsh and Pamela Duncan.
At the height of the pandemic, everything from mental health and coastguard services to care homes had to quickly change how they operated, and coroners across England are highlighting failures made during this time through reports that identify avoidable deaths.
They include a woman who missed out on vital mental healthcare because of Covid cancellations and a frail elderly woman who fell and died in a care home after she was put into self-isolation.
These notices, known as reports to prevent future deaths, are issued in very rare cases when it is decided that if changes are not made another person could die.
Updated
Epidemiologist appointed health secretary in Germany
An epidemiologist who has been a prominent voice of caution in handling the Covid pandemic has been appointed minister for health in Germany.
Olaf Scholz, who is to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor, picked Karl Lauterbach for the closely watched appointment, according to the US-based news agency the Associated Press.
The agency described Lauterbach as a “media-savvy lawmaker who lacks executive experience but has been one of Germany’s most prominent voices urging caution and strict measures against Covid-19”.
The appointment comes on the heels of tough new restrictions, at both state and federal levels, that largely target people who have chosen to remain unvaccinated. The German parliament is to also consider a general vaccine mandate.
Asked about prospects for the Christmas period, Lauterbach said that “an important aim must be to bring the case numbers down so far that we can recommend travel without endangering people”.
Updated
The deputy first minister of Scotland has said people should take a Covid test every time they want to leave the house.
John Swinney said that is what he was doing to ensure the maximum level of protection for his household and the public at large.
Swinney told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme:
We want people to increase the frequency of the use of lateral flow tests, away from the two times per week to much more frequently when they are socialising and interacting with others.
Personally, I am now doing a lateral flow test every day I am going out with the prospect of meeting other members of the public outside my household.
I would encourage others to do exactly the same, because that gives me confidence I’m protecting my household and it gives me confidence I’m protecting other people.
Ruptly, the Russian state-backed video news agency, has published some interesting footage of the anti-lockdown protests in Brussels that were broken up by police using teargas and water cannon.
#Brussels anti-#COVID measures march escalates into clashes pic.twitter.com/ky0KhpMdKZ
— Ruptly (@Ruptly) December 6, 2021
You can read more about what happened here in this news report.
Updated
After nearly two years out of school, some children in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, began returning to classrooms on Monday, amid extensive infection control measures.
The children, part of a trial at 28 schools in the capital region, were sat down at desks fitted with plastic screens, wearing face masks, Reuters reported.
The government aims to reopen all schools in January, as it tries to return the country to normal after imposing some of the world’s toughest pandemic restrictions.
A hundred schools in lower risk areas reopened last month. Precautions in the trial openings include capping class sizes at 15 pupils to avoid overcrowding.
The Philippines, which has has recorded 2.84 million Covid-19 cases and 49,499 deaths in total, is one of the last countries to reopen schools.
Daily infections have fallen sharply to below 1,000 since 24 November, from a peak of over 20,000 in September, paving the way for a wider economic reopening.
This is Damien Gayle taking over the live blog for the rest of the day.
Today so far
- Sarafa Tunji Isola, the Nigerian high commissioner to the UK, has said of the recentlty imposed travel ban that “the reaction in Nigeria is that of travel apartheid. We’re not dealing with an endemic situation, we are dealing with a pandemic situation, and what is expected is a global approach, not selective. Omicron is classified as a mild variant – no hospitalisation, no death. So the issue is quite different from the Delta variant.”
- UK government’s policing minister Kit Malthouse immediately hit back, and said describing measures imposed on numerous African nations as “travel apartheid” is “very unfortunate language”.
- UK prime minister Boris Johnson has denied scientists’ allegations that introducing travel restrictions to slow the spread of Omicron is like “shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted”.
- South Africa is preparing its hospitals for further admissions, as the Omicron variant pushes the country into a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement on Monday. Ramaphosa said Omicron appeared to be dominating new infections in most provinces and urged more people to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
- A man was fined €400 for travelling by bus in Rome without a valid health pass as new measures against the unvaccinated started in Italy. The “super green pass” bars the unvaccinated from a host of social, cultural and sporting activities, including dining inside at bars and restaurants.
- The incoming government in Germany wants to make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory from 16 March for people working in hospitals, nursing homes and other medical practices, according to a copy of draft legislation
- Nepal, Russia and Argentina were among countries detecting the Omicron variant for the first time. Argentina’s health ministry said there case was a fully vaccinated person who arrived on 30 November from South Africa via the US, and who had given a negative PCR test prior to travelling and another negative antigen test upon arrival in Buenos Aires.
- Argentina has today approved Russia’s one-dose Sputnik Light as a standalone vaccine and a booster shot.
- Cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant have risen to 21 in India over the weekend and people must step up for vaccination, officials said.
- A probable case of the Omicron variant has been identified in a crew member of a Norwegian cruise ship that reached New Orleans on Sunday.
- Dr Anthony Fauci said the threat to the US from the Omicron variant remained to be determined – but that signs from South Africa, where the variant was first detected, were encouraging.
- The Omicron variant has been found in at least 16 US states so far, with the number of cases “likely to rise”, Dr Rochelle Walensky, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Sunday.
- Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert cautioned that while it was increasingly obvious that ‘this pandemic is not done with us’, the next one could be more contagious, more lethal, or both. She called for more funding for pandemic preparedness.
- Critical care consultant Dr Zudin Puthucheary said it could be five years before Covid-19 intensive care unit (ICU) patients “reach their normal lives again”.
- People with cold-like symptoms should work from home and avoid Christmas parties in a bid to stem the spread of coronavirus, according to Tim Spector, from the Covid Zoe app.
- Prof Paul Hunter, from the school of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said there was concern that Omicron “is spreading rather more quickly than the Delta variant” and there were probably more than 1,000 cases in the UK at the moment. He said: “I think the early signs are that it will probably spread quite quickly and probably start outcompeting Delta and become the dominant variant probably within the next weeks or a month or so at least.”
That is it from me, Martin Belam, today. I will be back bright and early tomorrow. Andrew Sparrow has our combined UK politics and Covid live blog. Damien Gayle will be here shortly to guide you through the rest of the day’s coronavirus developments from around the world.
Updated
Argentina and Russia have joined the ranks of countries that are reporting they have detected their first cases of the Omicron variant.
According to Reuters, Interfax cited consumer health regulator Rospotrebnadzor as saying that 10 people who returned to Russia from South Africa had tested positive for Covid-19. RIA said Omicron had been detected in two arrivals from South Africa.
Argentina’s health ministry said their case is a 38-year-old resident of the western Argentine province of San Luis, who arrived on 30 November from South Africa on a flight via the US and has been in isolation since.
The patient involved, who was fully vaccinated, had given a negative PCR test prior to travelling and another negative antigen test upon arrival in Buenos Aires, the ministry said. The person tested again after finding out colleagues at a work event in South Africa had tested positive for Covid.
“The epidemiological objective currently is to contain and delay the possible community transmission of new variants of concern,” the ministry said.
The patient was in close contact with four people, who are also in isolation but have no symptoms and their PCR tests have been negative, the ministry said. All will be subjected to another PCR test at the end of their isolation.
Updated
Here’s that video clip of Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert delivering the 44th Richard Dimbleby lecture, and cautioned that while it was increasingly obvious that ‘this pandemic is not done with us’, the next one could be more contagious, more lethal, or both. She called for more funding for pandemic preparedness.
Argentina has approved Russia’s one-dose Sputnik Light as a standalone vaccine and a booster shot, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said, citing Argentina’s health ministry.
Argentina was one of the first countries to widely use Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine.
Reuters quote the RDIF saying that a study in Argentina showed Sputnik Light was an “effective universal booster” when combined with vaccines produced by AstraZeneca, Moderna, Sinopharm and CanSino.
Rome issues first fine for travelling on a bus without a vaccination health pass
A man was fined €400 for travelling by bus in Rome without a valid health pass as new measures against the unvaccinated kicked in on Monday.
The 50-year-old reportedly told police that he was planning to get vaccinated against Covid-19 over the next few days. It was the first fine issued after the requirement for the “green pass”, which shows proof of immunisation, of having recovered from Covid-19 or testing negative within the previous 48 hours, was made mandatory when travelling on buses and underground trains across Italy. The measure was already in place for long-distance trains and domestic flights.
Thousands of police officers are carrying out controls on public transport. The man was caught after getting off a bus in central Rome.
Meanwhile, the “super green pass” also took effect on Monday and bars the unvaccinated from a host of social, cultural and sporting activities, including dining inside at bars and restaurants. The new rules, which were announced in late November, have led to a sharp increase in the number of bookings for first-time jabs.
Updated
Andrew Sparrow has launched our UK politics and Covid live blog for the day. You can find that here.
I’ll be continuing on this live blog with the latest global coronavirus news.
A party of the sort that is alleged to have taken place inside Downing Street last December might not necessarily have broken the strict lockdown rules in place at the time, the policing minister, Kit Malthouse, has appeared to argue.
Malthouse’s comments contradicted those made by Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, who conceded on Sunday that a “formal party” of the sort reported would have been contrary to the then-Covid-19 guidance.
Malthouse also took a different view to Raab’s claim that the police “don’t normally look back and investigate things that have taken place a year ago”, saying it would be right for police to follow up any formal complaints about the event.
Questions about the gathering on 18 December last year, when London was in the top level of Covid restrictions, dogged Malthouse throughout a round of media interviews on Monday, one intended to showcase a new government strategy on drugs.
Read more here: Ministers at odds over Downing Street Christmas parties
Covid cases that end up in ICU could take 'up to five years before they reach normal lives again'
Critical care consultant Dr Zudin Puthucheary said it could be five years before Covid-19 intensive care unit (ICU) patients “reach their normal lives again”.
The member of the Intensive Care Society Council in the UK raised concerns that there are not enough staff to rehabilitate patients who are treated in ICUs.
PA Media quotes him telling Sky News: “People who have chosen to be unvaccinated make up the vast majority of patients on the intensive care unit at the moment, and certainly most of our pregnant patients are unvaccinated.
“These are the young people – the vast majority of them do survive, 60% of our patients are currently surviving. But that survival comes with a huge cost and that needs rehabilitation. We don’t have the staff, have the resources to rehabilitate these patients, and it may be up to five years before they reach their normal lives again.
“But 40% of these people are dying, and they don’t need to die had they been vaccinated.”
Asked about winter pressures on the NHS, he said: “Things aren’t great in hospitals right now. As we gear up for winter, we have intensive care units that are full, wards that are full and a dropping number of stuff.”
Updated
Cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant have risen to 21 in India over the weekend and people must step up for vaccination, officials said.
The western state of Rajasthan reported the most number of Omicron cases with nine, followed by eight in Maharashtra, two in Karnataka and one each in Gujarat and the capital, New Delhi.
“The people of Delhi must get fully vaccinated, wear a mask and maintain social distancing,” its health minister Satyendar Jain said on Twitter.
He said the city’s first Omicron patient was being treated at a state-run hospital. Some 94% of its adults had received at lease one dose, he added.
Reuters note that the country has fully vaccinated 51% of its 944 million adults and given at least one dose to 85%. Tens of millions of people, however, are overdue for their second dose despite ample vaccine supplies, government data shows.
India reported its first two Omicron cases in the southern state of Karnataka on Thursday, including in one person with no recent travel history.
Most other cases have been in people who have recently come from abroad, but doctors said the mutated virus was already spreading in the local population as well.
Updated
The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has denied scientists’ allegations that introducing travel restrictions to slow the spread of Omicron is like “shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted”.
Visiting police in Merseyside, PA Media quote the Prime Minister telling reporters:
No, I think what we’re doing is responding to the pandemic. We were the first country in the world to take decisive measures to tackle Omicron. We put about 10 countries automatically, immediately, on to the red list and we said that anybody coming from any country in the world would have to quarantine for a couple of days.
We’re now going further and toughening those measures up as we see the spread of Omicron around the world.
I don’t think we need to change the overall guidance and advice we’re giving about Omicron in this country. We’re still waiting to see exactly how dangerous it is, what sort of effect it has in terms of deaths and hospitalisations.
People with cold-like symptoms should work from home and avoid Christmas parties in a bid to stem the spread of coronavirus, according to Tim Spector, from the Covid Zoe app.
The professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London told Times Radio the UK should be “much more open-minded about who we are testing” and “get more people to isolate at least for a few days with cold-like symptoms”.
“At the moment, we’re estimating that somewhere between one and three and one in four colds are actually due to Covid,” he said. And so that’s quite a high rate of people that are currently not even bothered to get a lateral flow test, or getting a PCR test, going to parties and spreading it around.
“So if that transfers to Omicron then we’re going to be compiling that problem much faster than we would need to.”
PA Media quote him saying: “We want to tell people that if you don’t feel well that day, don’t go out, don’t go to work, work from home, because the start of that sniffle, the start of that sore throat, that headache could be a mild dose of Covid that is just breaking through your vaccine.
“So I think everyone needs to be much more aware of a whole range of symptoms and not wait for the loss of smell or taste which may never come, not wait for fever, not wait for that persistent cough.”
Nepal has detected its first two cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, the health ministry has said.
A 66-year-old foreigner, who had entered Nepal from a country with confirmed Omicron variant on 19 November, and another 71-year-old person who was in close contact with him tested positive for Omicron on Sunday, the ministry said in a statement. It did not identify their nationalities.
“Both of them are in isolation and getting healthcare under the supervision of health workers,” the statement said.
Sixty-six other people who had contacts with them were traced and all tested negative, it added.
Gopal Sharma reports for Reuters from Kathmandu that Nepal recently banned travellers from eight African countries and Hong Kong over fears about the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
The UK government’s policing minister Kit Malthouse has immediately hit back about that, and said describing measures imposed on numerous African nations as “travel apartheid” is “very unfortunate language”.
PA Media quote him telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
It’s very unfortunate language to use. We understand the difficulties that’s created by these travel restrictions, but we’re trying to buy a little bit of time so that our scientists at Porton Down can work on the virus and assess how difficult it’s going to be for us to cope with as a country.
Nigerian high commissioner to UK: border restrictions are 'travel apartheid'
Sarafa Tunji Isola, the Nigerian high commissioner to the UK, has had some strong words this morning about border closures over the Omicron variant. PA Media quotes him telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
The reaction in Nigeria is that of travel apartheid. Because Nigeria is actually aligned with the position of the UN secretary general that the travel ban is apartheid, in the sense that we’re not dealing with an endemic situation, we are dealing with a pandemic situation, and what is expected is a global approach, not selective.
Omicron is classified as a mild variant – no hospitalisation, no death. So the issue is quite different from the Delta variant. I mean, the position has to be taken based on scientific and empirical evidence. It is not a kind of panicky situation.
Here is a reminder of England’s travel red list:
Updated
Omicron likely to become dominant variant in UK 'within the next weeks or a month'
Prof Paul Hunter, from the school of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said there was concern that Omicron “is spreading rather more quickly than the Delta variant” and there were probably more than 1,000 cases in the UK at the moment.
He told BBC Breakfast it was not clear how evidence from South Africa would translate to the UK as we have a highly vaccinated population. PA Media quotes him saying:
How it’s likely to spread in the UK still uncertain, but I think the early signs are that it will probably spread quite quickly and probably start outcompeting Delta and become the dominant variant probably within the next weeks or a month or so at least.
The big remaining question is actually how harmful it is if you do get Covid with this Omicron variant, and that’s the question that we’re struggling to answer at the moment.
He said travel restrictions would have a minor impact, adding that “one of the problems with travel restrictions like this is that it then de-motivates other countries to actually be open about their own situations for fear of what they would see as economic sanctions. So I think once the infection is spreading within a country, then border restrictions don’t really add anything. We’ve known that long before Covid. This has been knowledge that we’ve had for decades, if not centuries, to be honest.”
Asked if the UK was closer to the start of the pandemic than the end, he said: “I wouldn’t necessarily agree totally with that. I think this virus is around, going to be around, forever.
“The last time we had a big coronavirus outbreak we think was 130 years ago and that virus is still circulating, we get infected with it fairly regularly, every three to six years, and it basically just causes the common cold.
“That is likely the way that this pandemic is going, so we will be repeatedly infected with Covid, we will be repeatedly infected with new variants but by and large, they’ll just be another cause of the common cold and at that point, we’ll stop worrying about it, but we’re not we’re not quite there yet.”
Updated
One of the other things that UK policing minister Kit Malthouse was questioned about on Sky News this morning was travel restrictions and testing requirements to travel. He said:
We have to recognise that all these things are impositions on people’s lives and lifestyles. They’re obviously an extra cost and they cause difficulty for the travel industry. Now we need to try and smooth that as much as possible, and be proportionate about our response.
We’ve got family overseas. We’re going to be travelling at Christmas, where we will have done tests in and out, in and out both ways. And it is a total pain, especially if you’ve got kids, right? So we understand. So we have to be proportionate and make judgments at the right moment. That’s what we’ve done. And it feels to me as if in the face of the unknown of this virus at the moment, for the next few weeks, that’s where we need to be,
We’re in a much better place than a lot of countries right now. The decisions we made in the summer are paying dividends. That booster programme is going really well, 20 million people now I think and rising.
The government’s own figures show that of those in the population aged 12 and above, 88.8% have had a first dose of a vaccine, 80.9% two doses, and 35.2% have a had a third or booster jab. There have been 20.2m booster jabs administered.
Japan confirms third Omicron case
A quick snap from Reuters here that a man in his 30s who had been in Italy has tested positive for the Omicron variant in the third case to be found in Japan.
Speaking at a news conference, chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno provided no further details, not saying which country the traveller was coming from or giving his nationality.
While doing the media round this morning, UK policing minister Kit Malthouse has been repeatedly asked about whether police should investigate the Christmas party that is alleged to have taken place at No 10 Downing Street last year while London was under tier three Covid restrictions which would have made such a gathering against the regulations. On Sky News, he said:
No 10 are are reassuring everybody that all rules were complied with during that period, and I take that reassurance at face value. But no doubt if the police are alerted, they will have a look, and they’ll form a view, and we’ll all learn more about it in the days to come.
My colleague Peter Walker has summed up the Malthouse response thus:
Kit Malthouse's answers on the No 10 Xmas party getting deep into philosophical territory. He has been reassured that no rules were broken that evening, but he doesn't know for certain that there was "an event" at which any rules could be (not) broken.
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) December 6, 2021
Updated
Eric Berger writes for us that the Omicron variant brings fresh concern for US mental heath after ‘grim two years’:
“Despite vaccinations, we still see that people are not back to pre-pandemic levels of wellbeing,” said Silvia Saccardo, a social scientist and co-author of a recent study on college students at the University of Pittsburgh students. “And they are not back to pre-pandemic levels of physical activity, which could have consequences as well, and this is quite worrisome, because if lifestyle habits and wellbeing don’t naturally rebound, it’s important to think about what to do, about interventions to help them.”
Psychologists and others who study mental health attribute the high rates of anxiety and depression to continued worries about the virus, and lingering trauma from the worst parts of the pandemic.
That is not unusual, said Sharon Hoover, co-director of the University of Maryland-based National Center for School Mental Health. For example, more than 18 months after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, 15% of youths exposed to the natural disaster continued to suffer from serious emotional disturbances, such as anxiety disorders, compared with a 4.2% national average, according to a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Like the twentysomethings Isaacs has seen, children and teens have also missed out on significant life events, Hoover said, and “that doesn’t get remedied overnight by reintroducing those things”.
Read more of Eric Berger’s report here: Omicron brings fresh concern for US mental heath after ‘grim two years’
On Sky News this morning, UK policing minister Kit Malthouse has been asked several questions about Covid and the Omicron variant. One was whether given that there appear to so far have been no deaths or hospitalisations involving the new variant, was the UK government over-reacting. He said:
We’re being proportionate and precautionary. Obviously we don’t know completely what this variant is going to do. We know it seems to be quite infectious, but we don’t know yet exactly how difficult it’s going to be for people’s bodies to cope with it. Research is ongoing. We’ve got world beating science, you know, world leading scientists who will be able to give us those answers over the next two or three weeks.
In the meantime, what the Prime Minister has said said is, let’s be careful, right, let’s take it steady. Let’s make sure we’re masked in certain areas where we think there’s likely to be transmission. Let’s think about travel more carefully and make sure we do testing at the border to restrict the virus coming into buy us a bit more time. But fundamentally, let’s be proportionate and get on with our lives to some extent and try and have as merry a Christmas as we possibly can. So we’re learning as we go.
Don’t forget Omicron is quite a way down the alphabet. That means between delta and now we’ve been through a number of variants that haven’t got very far. Let’s see where this one goes.
On that last point the World Health Organization has identified five variants of concern: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Omicron. A variant of concern, they say, has been demonstrated to be associated with one or more of the following changes at a degree of global public health significance:
- Increase in transmissibility or detrimental change in Covid-19 epidemiology; or
- Increase in virulence or change in clinical disease presentation; or
- Decrease in effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics.
There are currently two other variants of interest – Lambda and Mu – which are being investigated for their potential to become a variant of concern.
Updated
Nesrene Malik has filed her latest comment piece for us today, saying that Covid jingoism will not protect the west from the threat of Omicron:
There is something farcical about a political decision-making complex that has learned nothing from the past two years – two years during which the UK has tried to minimise and assume, at almost every turn, that it could escape the fate of other countries. Two years during which a very particular strain of Anglo-American swagger has emerged – one that falsely believes that if we raise our walls high enough, stockpile our vaccines and establish travel apartheid, then the pandemic will be over for us, even if it continues to rage elsewhere.
It does not seem to matter that during these two years, the worst tragedies did not happen abroad, but within our borders. They happened in our care homes, our hospitals, and in the wake of government indecisiveness over locking down (thrice) when it was clear that cases were rising. Imagine how many lives might have been saved had the UK government put the promised “protective ring” around care homes with the deftness and speed it red-listed and categorised other countries. But we are living in a state of inertia, where politicians continually fail to see that the problem is not that the virus and its variants make their way to the UK, but what happens when they do.
Read more here: Nesrene Malik – Covid jingoism will not protect the west from the threat of Omicron
Hello, it is Martin Belam here in London, taking over from Samantha Lock. Here’s an update on the latest Covid figures in the UK.
Over the last seven days there have been 322,042 new coronavirus cases recorded in the UK. Cases have increased by 5.4% week-on-week.
There have been 830 deaths recorded in the last week. Deaths have decreased by 2.1% week-on-week.
Hospital admissions have decreased by 0.8% week-on-week. At the latest count on the UK government’s own dashboard, there were 7,373 people in hospital in total, of whom 895 are in ventilation beds.
Kit Malthouse is the government minister doing the media round this morning. Initially he is being asked on Sky News about new plans for dealing with drugs in England and Wales. I’ll bring you any Covid lines that emerge if he gets asked about that.
South Africa prepares for more hospital admissions
South Africa is preparing its hospitals for more admissions, as the Omicron variant pushes the country into a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement on Monday.
Ramaphosa said that Omicron appeared to be dominating new infections in most provinces and urged more people to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
“As the country heads into a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections, we are experiencing a rate of infections that we have not seen since the pandemic started,” he said, adding that over the last week, the number of daily infections has increased five-fold.
While we do not yet know what impact the Omicron variant will have on hospital admissions, we have been preparing hospitals to admit more patients, and we are investigating how we can quickly secure medication for treating Covid-19.
“We will soon be convening a meeting of the National Coronavirus Command Council to review the state of the pandemic. This will enable us to take whatever further measures are needed to keep people safe and healthy,” he added.
Summary
If you’ve just joined us, here’s a rundown of all the top Covid developments:
- The incoming German government wants to make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory from 16 March for people working in hospitals, nursing homes and other medical practices, according to a copy of draft legislation seen by Reuters on Sunday.
- Thailand has detected its first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant in a US citizen, who had travelled to the country from Spain late last month, a health official said.
-
South Korea reported another 4,325 confirmed Covid cases in the past 24 hours and a further 41 deaths.
- India reported an additional 8,306 new cases in the last 24 hours and a further 211 deaths. The nation’s active caseload currently stands at 98,416 and is the lowest reported in 552 days.
- South Africa reported a daily increase of 11,125 new cases on Sunday, a slight decrease in the number on previous days.
- New Zealand purchased 60,000 courses of Pfizer’s oral antiviral medication to treat early infections of Covid, subject to Medsafe approval, prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced.
- A probable case of the Omicron variant has been identified in a crew member of a Norwegian Cruise ship that reached New Orleans on Sunday.
- Dr Anthony Fauci said the threat to the US from the Omicron variant remained to be determined – but that signs from South Africa, where the variant was first detected, were encouraging.
- The Omicron variant has been found in at least 16 US states so far, with the number of cases “likely to rise”, Dr Rochelle Walensky, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Sunday.
Updated
Thailand detects first case of Omicron variant
Thailand has detected its first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant in a US citizen who had travelled to the country from Spain late last month, a health official said on Monday, Reuters reports.
The confirmed case in the man, who had arrived on 29 November, makes Thailand the 47th country to have found the new variant, Opas Karnkawinpong, Director-General of the Department of Disease Control, told a news conference.
“This first confirmed case of Omicron variant is a 35-year-old man who is a US citizen who lived in Spain for a year,” Opas said adding that the patient had mild symptom.
Opas said health authorities were conducting further tests of people who had come into contact with the man, but said all contacts so far were low risk.
Thailand banned travellers from eight African countries including Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe at the start of December amid concerns about the Omicron variant.
Opas said authorities had also limited travel from other African countries and were monitoring for more potential cases among international travellers.
Updated
A probable case of the Omicron variant has been identified in a crew member of a Norwegian Cruise ship that reached New Orleans on Sunday after detecting Covid-19 among some crew and guests, the Louisiana Department of Health said.
The probable case was found among 10 people who tested positive for the virus on Saturday, the health agency said in a tweet on Sunday.
Another seven cases have since been reported, it added, taking the total number of cases among passengers and crew of Norwegian Breakaway, a cruise ship owned by Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd , to 17.
“At this time, there have been no changes to scheduled future sailings on Norwegian Breakaway,” a spokesperson for Norwegian Cruise Line said in a statement to Reuters.
The cruise ship departed New Orleans on a week-long cruise on 28 November and had stops in Belize, Honduras and Mexico, the health agency said.
“NCL has been adhering to appropriate quarantine and isolation protocols,” the department said in an earlier tweet.
Australia’s travel ban to several southern African countries due to the outbreak of the Omicron variant has been labelled as discriminatory by a senior diplomat.
South Africa’s high commissioner to Australia, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, said the ban needed to be overturned due to large numbers of Omicron cases being detected in other continents and not just in parts of Africa.
“We believe it is discrimination, because the only difference is these countries [on the travel ban list] are on the African continent,” he told ABC Radio on Monday. “The ban is unfair, there is no evidence the ban works, the World Health Organization confirms that.”
The travel ban to nine southern African nations was announced in the wake of the Omicron variant being detected. It also led to a two-week delay to the entry of visa holders without a medical exemption, which is now set to take place from 15 December.
The Omicron strain continues to cast a bit of a shadow over the financial markets with stocks in Asia struggling in Monday’s session thanks in part to concerns about the pandemic renewing itself.
Japan’s Nikkei eased 0.5% but Korea, Australia and Chinese blue-chip stocks were all in positive territory. The UK, European and US markets are expected to rise at the opening bell on Monday.
Kyle Rodda, market analyst at IG in Melbourne, said on Monday that as Omicron cases spread to more countries “there’s no clear sense” on what it all means for the global the economy.
He added: “However early indicators are that the strain is more virulent, vaccine resistant at least to some extent, but maybe a little milder than previous strains. Concerningly, it also seems to hit kids harder than any other variant. To what degree these things are true is practically unknown at the moment. But markets seem to be pricing in that it’s going to have a negative impact on global economic activity.”
Hong Kong was down 1.2% partly because Evergrande, the troubled Chinese property giant hinted that it might not meet its latest default deadline, taking its shares down 11% on Monday.
South Korea has just released its daily Covid numbers with another 4,325 confirmed coronavirus cases recorded in the past 24 hours.
A further 41 deaths were also reported, taking the cumulative nationwide total to 3,893.
Thailand has also reported 4,000 new coronavirus cases and 22 deaths on Monday, taking the nationwide tally to more than 2.1 million cases and 20,966 deaths since the pandemic began.
More than 57% of people in Thailand have received two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, health ministry data showed.
Updated
India has reported an additional 8,306 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours, according to recently released figures from the ministry of health. A further 211 deaths were also recorded.
The nation’s active caseload currently stands at 98,416 and is the lowest reported in 552 days.
On Sunday, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya, India’s minister for health, announced over 50% of the eligible population had been fully vaccinated.
Updated
US president Joe Biden has announced that health insurers in the US must cover the cost of at-home Covid testing from next month.
Private health insurers already cover the cost for PCR tests taken at a doctor’s office but will now cover tests taken at home, too.
For those Americans not covered by private health insurance, free tests will be made available at other locations across the country.
“The bottom line, this winter, you’ll be able to test for free in the comfort of your home and have some peace of mind,” Biden said.
With free at-home COVID-19 testing, you and your family will be able to test from the comfort of your home and have some peace of mind this holiday season. pic.twitter.com/ZI5UPrbnwk
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) December 6, 2021
New Zealand has purchased 60,000 courses of Pfizer’s oral antiviral medication to treat early infections of Covid-19, subject to Medsafe approval, prime minister Jacinda Ardern has announced.
“It’s a big step forward for the management of Covid-19 globally. That brings the suite of Covid medicine secured and managed by PHARMAC to six in total, three of which are already in use in our hospitals and the rest of which, subject to Medsafe approval, will arrive in New Zealand early in the new year,” Ardern said.
The prime minister said alongside vaccinations, hospital treatments were already reducing the likelihood of people needing intensive care, with rates in Auckland dropping from 5.7% seen early in the pandemic to 3%.
Health experts will provide a more extensive briefing at the end of the week about the treatments, Ardern said.
The country reported 135 new cases of the Delta variant in the community on Monday, bringing the total in the current outbreak to 9,171.
The nation’s eligible population - 12 years and older - is set to hit the 90% double-vaccinated goal by 15 December.
Updated
Germany has reported an additional 27,836 daily Covid cases and 81 deaths, according to recently released figures from the Robert Koch Institute.
The European nation is currently mulling compulsory vaccinations for some health care employees in order to curb the spread of the virus.
Germany has recorded a cumulative total of 103,121 deaths and 6,185,961 confirmed coronavirus cases.
The Johnson & Johnson booster shot may work well for those who originally had a Pfizer vaccine, a recent study has found.
Researchers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston studied 65 people who had received two shots of the Pfizer vaccine. Six months after the second dose, the researchers gave 24 of the volunteers a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine and gave 41 the Johnson & Johnson shot.
Both vaccines boosted the number of Covid-fighting T-cells but the T-cell increase delivered by the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was twice as high as that of Pfizer’s, according to the research.
Volunteers who received a third Pfizer dose saw their antibody levels jump after two weeks, and then decline by a quarter by the fourth week. The Johnson & Johnson booster more than doubled antibody levels between the second and fourth weeks where Pfizer’s antibodies were still about 50% higher than Johnson & Johnson’s. Both levels were well above the threshold scientists believe is needed for strong protection.
The results differ from earlier studies, including a “mix and match” clinical trial organised by the National Institutes of Health that reported that all three authorised vaccines — from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — caused antibody levels to rise when used as a booster, with Johnson & Johnson’s shot providing a much smaller boost than the others.
The difference between the two studies might be explained by the length of delay between shots, the New York Times suggests. In the NIH. trial, many of the volunteers got their booster shots after three or four months, versus the new study’s wait of six months. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine therefore seems to have benefited more from the longer wait.
The study was funded in part by Johnson & Johnson and has not yet been published in a scientific journal.
Next pandemic could be more lethal, says Oxford jab creator
The coronavirus pandemic is far from over and the next one could be even more lethal, the creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has said.
Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert cautioned that while it was increasingly obvious that “this pandemic is not done with us”, the next one could be worse.
Delivering the 44th Richard Dimbleby lecture, due to be broadcast on the BBC on Monday, Gilbert said that despite the destructive nature of a two-year pandemic that had already infected more than 265 million people, the next one might be more contagious and claim even more lives.
“This will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods,” she said. “The truth is, the next one could be worse. It could be more contagious, or more lethal, or both.”
Read the full story by our reporters Andrew Gregory and Jessica Elgot here.
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South Africa has reported a daily increase of 11,125 new Covid cases on Sunday, a slight decrease in number on previous days.
Just one death in the country was reported over the last 24 hours, bringing the nationwide tally to 89,966.
US Senator Bernie Sanders has called upon pharmaceutical companies to share their vaccines, describing the current global vaccine inequality as “obscene”.
“This is obscene. Last week, 8 investors in Pfizer and Moderna became $10 billion richer as news about the Omicron variant spread,” Sanders tweeted on Sunday evening.
“It’s time for these pharmaceutical companies to share their vaccines with the world and start controlling their greed. Enough is enough!”
This is obscene. Last week, 8 investors in Pfizer and Moderna became $10 billion richer as news about the Omicron variant spread. It's time for these pharmaceutical companies to share their vaccines with the world and start controlling their greed. Enough is enough!
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 5, 2021
The global disparity in vaccination rates is evident in the map below.
Health experts continue to call for action to tackle the crisis of vaccine inequality between rich and poor countries.
Failure to vaccinate the world against coronavirus created the perfect breeding ground for the emergence of the Omicron variant and should serve as a wake-up call to wealthy nations, campaigners have said.
Scientists and global health experts have called for action to tackle the crisis of vaccine inequality between rich and poor countries. The longer large parts of the world remained unvaccinated, they said, the more likely the virus was to mutate significantly.
The emergence of such a variant threatens to derail efforts to end the pandemic. The World Health Organization says the heavily mutated Omicron variant is likely to spread internationally and poses a very high risk of infection surges that may have severe consequences in some places.
Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAids and co-chair of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, a campaign group, said:
Omicron is with us because we have failed to vaccinate the world. This should be a wake-up call.
“Business as usual has led to huge profits for pharmaceutical firms, but many people left unvaccinated means that this virus continues to mutate. It is the definition of madness to keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. We need to press reset.”
Read the fully story from our reporter Andrew Gregory here.
Early reports on Omicron severity are 'encouraging', Fauci says
Dr Anthony Fauci said on Sunday the threat to the US from the Omicron variant remained to be determined – but that signs from South Africa, where the variant emerged, were encouraging.
“Clearly in South Africa Omicron has a transmission advantage,” Fauci told CNN’s State of the Union, “because … they were very much at a low level then they had almost a vertical spike upwards, which is almost exclusively Omicron.
Thus far – though it’s too early to really make any definitive statements about it – it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it.
“But we have really got to be careful before we make any determinations that [Omicron] is less severe or it really doesn’t cause any severe illness comparable to Delta. But, thus far, the signals are a bit encouraging regarding the severity. But, again, you got to hold judgment until we get more experience.”
Germany plans vaccine mandates for some health jobs
The incoming German government wants to make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory from 16 March for people working in hospitals, nursing homes and other medical practices, according to a copy of draft legislation seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The European nation is currently battling a surge in Covid infections as officials propose more drastic measures to curb the spread before Christmas.
The Social Democrats, Greens and Free Democrats, which are set to form the new German government on Wednesday, are set to present the legislation to parliament in the coming week.
The draft seen by Reuters said staff working in these areas would have to prove that they are vaccinated or recovered from Covid-19 or present a medical certificate to show they cannot be vaccinated by 15 March.
The draft legislation also grants permission for dentists, veterinarians and pharmacists to be allowed to give shots for a temporary period with the appropriate training.
The proposed legislation extends until 15 February temporary measures that would allow Germany’s federal states to introduce more drastic lockdown measures if needed, the news agency reports.
Omicron found in one-third of US states
The Omicron variant has been found in at least 16 US states so far, with the number of cases “likely to rise”, Dr Rochelle Walensky, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Sunday.
Walensky told ABC News:
“We know we have several dozen cases and we’re following them closely. And we are every day hearing about more and more probable cases so that number is likely to rise.”
California was the first US state to confirm the presence of the variant. Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin have also followed suit, according to a Reuters tally.
Many of the cases were among fully vaccinated individuals with mild symptoms, although the booster shot status of some patients was not reported.
The Delta variant continues to account for 99.9% of new Covid cases in the United States, Walensky added.
Hello everyone, and welcome to today’s coronavirus live blog.
I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments from around the world. Let’s dive right in.
The Omicron variant has been found in at least 15 US states so far, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Sunday.
“We know we have several dozen cases and we’re following them closely. And we are every day hearing about more and more probable cases so that number is likely to rise,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told ABC News in an interview, adding that the Delta variant remains the majority in cases nationwide.
Omicron has been detected in the Northeast, the South, the Great Plains and the West Coast. Wisconsin, Missouri and Louisiana are among the latest states to confirm cases.
Germany’s incoming new government is set to make Covid vaccinations mandatory for workers of hospitals, nursing homes and other medical staff by 16 March, according to draft legislation seen by Reuters.
The Social Democrats, Greens and Free Democrats, which are set to form the new German government on Wednesday, are set to present the legislation to parliament in the coming week.
Here is a snapshot of the key developments:
- Protests in Brussels, Belgium, against government restrictions to suppress Covid turned violent on Sunday, with police firing teargas and water cannon at demonstrators who threw cobblestones and fireworks.
- There has been a “concerning” jump to 183 confirmed cases of the Omicron variant in Denmark, local health authorities said.
- Five senior health officers in Jordan were sentenced to three years in prison on Sunday, for causing the deaths of ten Covid patients in March following an oxygen outage.
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Russia recorded 32,602 infections and 1,206 deaths.
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Poland confirmed 22,389 cases and 45 deaths.
- Italy reported 15,021 new Covid cases and 43 deaths on Sunday, 16% up from 12,927 on the same day last week.
- The UK detected 43,992 positive Covid infections in the past 24 hours, up 21% from 36,507 cases on Sunday last week. A further 54 deaths were reported.
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France recorded 42,252 new Covid infections in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said, a percentage change of 188% from the 14,646 cases recorded on Sunday three weeks ago.
- Singapore detected 552 Covid infections and 13 deaths on Sunday, taking the seven-day average to 971 cases a day.
- The UK’s NHS will be in a “very, very difficult position” if the Omicron variant were to lead to a surge in hospital admissions in the UK, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has warned.
- The Omicron variant is highly transmissible, but has a less than 1% chance of re-infection and typically results in “milder” disease, a South African researcher as said.
- Covid is not over and the next pandemic could be more lethal, the creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert has said.
- The World Health Organization continues to reject travel bans against southern African countries, with Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeting it is “disappointing” and “dismaying” to see bans on flights.
