New Coronavirus News from 29 Dec 2021

As omicron surges, U.S., U.K. and others shatter Covid records [NBC News, 29 Dec 2021]

By Chantal Da Silva

The U.S. hit a record 7-day case average of 262,034 cases, eclipsing a record set early in 2021.

The U.S., Britain, France, Australia and other countries are shattering records for daily reported coronavirus cases as the highly transmissible omicron variant of the coronavirus has upended hopes of a return to some version of normality in parts of the world.

“Right now, delta and omicron are twin threats that are driving up cases to record numbers, which again is leading to spikes in hospitalizations and deaths,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, said at a news conference Wednesday.

“Omicron is moving so quickly,” he said, warning that he feared that the new variant risked causing a “tsunami of cases” that would only further strain health care systems around the world.

Covid, he said, “will continue to evolve and threaten our health system if we don’t improve the collective response.”

The WHO marked two years since it was first alerted to an outbreak of an illness in Wuhan, China, that would eventually come to be known as Covid-19.

Ken Cedeno / Bloomberg via Getty Images
The U.S. hit a seven-day average of 262,034 cases Tuesday, eclipsing the record of 252,776, which was set Jan. 11, according to an NBC News data analysis. (The data can be skewed by days with anomalous data entries, which are common around the holiday period.)

In all, 1.8 million cases were reported in the U.S. last week, a 69.3 percent increase from the week before.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the omicron variant accounted for 58.6 percent of all Covid cases in the U.S. in the week that ended Saturday, while the delta variant accounted for 41.1 percent of cases.

DEC. 28, 202103:19

The omicron variant appeared to make up a lower share of cases than expected — the CDC also lowered its estimates for the week that ended Dec. 18, from 73 percent of cases having been caused by the omicron variant to 23 percent.

Meanwhile, the WHO said Tuesday that the number of Covid cases recorded worldwide increased by 11 percent last week compared to the previous week, with the biggest increase in the Americas.

The WHO, the U.N. health agency, said nearly 4.99 million new cases were reported around the world from Dec. 20 to Sunday.

It said early data from Britain, South Africa and Denmark suggested that there was “a reduced risk of hospitalization for the omicron compared to the delta variant,” although it stressed that further data were needed.

The U.K. also reported record numbers Tuesday, recording 129,471 new cases, the most yet.
The data were not complete, however, as they did not include figures for Scotland and Northern Ireland because of differences in reporting practices over the holiday period.

Despite the rise in cases, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he will not introduce further coronavirus restrictions in England before the new year.

Meanwhile, France, Portugal and Greece all reported record numbers.

France’s health minister, Dr. Olivier Véran, said Wednesday that France would report 208,000 new Covid infections over the previous 24 hours, breaking the record that was set Tuesday, 179,807.

He said that every second, about two French people have been testing positive for Covid.

Portugal reported a record 17,172 cases Tuesday. Government data showed that the omicron variant already represented 61.5 percent of all new cases in the country, which has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. Around 87 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated.

Greece also had its highest number of daily cases, with 21,657 identified Tuesday, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called for a “gear change” as almost 18,300 new daily infections were recorded Tuesday, far surpassing the previous high of around 11,300.

Morrison called a snap meeting of the national Cabinet for Thursday to examine what changes could be made to lessen the strain on testing laboratories and get people out of isolation faster.

“We just can’t have everybody just being taken out of circulation because they just happen to be at a particular place at a particular time,” he said in a news briefing Wednesday.

Under his plan, clinically urgent cases would be prioritized to cut waiting times for tests and lab results, with PCR tests required only for people with symptoms.

A number of countries, including the U.S. and the U.K., have shortened isolation periods for people who test positive.

The CDC updated its isolation guidance Monday to allow those who have tested positive for Covid but have no symptoms to isolate for five days, down from the previous recommendation of 10 days.

Meanwhile, the U.K. government reduced isolation times for people with Covid, allowing those who have tested positive to leave self-isolation after seven days, instead of 10, if they have received two negative lateral flow test results.

Omicron accounts for 90% of Colorado COVID cases; outlook for hospitals uncertain [Burlington Record, 29 Dec 2021]

By MEG WINGERTER

Polis urges testing, booster shots
The omicron variant skyrocketed to account for more than 90% of Colorado’s COVID-19 cases three weeks after it was found, but it’s not clear what its dominance will mean for the state.

The new variant was found in just 0.1% of samples with genetic sequencing during the week of Nov. 28, when the delta variant still dominated, according to data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. By the week of Dec. 19, about 91.2% of COVID-19 test samples sequenced in the state contained omicron.

In contrast, it took delta 13 weeks to get above 90%. Omicron has two advantages over delta and other variants: it spreads more easily, and is more likely to cause a breakthrough infection in people who have been vaccinated or a reinfection in those who survived a previous version of the virus.

Emerging data suggests even people who have had a booster shot may be more likely to be infected with omicron than with previous variants, although they’re expected to have less-severe symptoms. (Researchers in the United Kingdom who found evidence boosters’ effectiveness waned against infection didn’t yet have enough patients hospitalized with omicron after a booster shot to run calculations.)

“If you’ve been vaccinated twice, please get that third shot,” Gov. Jared Polis said during a news conference Wednesday. “If you haven’t been vaccinated, you should be very careful over the next few weeks.”

New cases have surpassed the most recent peak, set in November, and reached levels last seen on Dec. 10, 2020. An average of 15.5% of COVID-19 tests also came back positive over the most recent seven days with data, suggesting the state doesn’t have a full picture of how people are infected. Polis acknowledged some testing sites have had long lines, but urged people with symptoms to look for a different location.

“There are 100 others without a line at any given time,” he said.

It’s clear cases will continue to increase in the short term, but the picture for hospitalizations is murkier, said Dr. Eric France, chief medical officer at the state health department. As of Wednesday afternoon, 1,088 people were hospitalized for confirmed COVID-19 in Colorado, for a fourth day of increases.

So far, there’s no sign of an increase in hospitalized children, which some northeastern states are reporting, France said at the news conference. As of Wednesday afternoon, 26 people younger than 18 were receiving care for COVID-19 in Colorado hospitals.

It appears omicron is significantly less likely than delta to cause severe illness, but it’s not yet clear if that’s because the virus itself is different, or because it’s infecting more people with some immunity, France said. Many scenarios are possible, from a “mild bump” to an “overwhelming bump,” he said.

“What may feel calm today could change in as little as 48 hours,” he said.

Omicron also differs from delta because it moves faster, which led to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decision to change its guidance on when to stay home, France said.
Most people who are infected with omicron develop symptoms in one to three days, and they tend not to shed the virus for more than a few days afterward, he said.

The new guidance is:
• If you know you have COVID-19, you should stay home and avoid others for five days. If you haven’t had a fever for 24 hours after completing those five days, you can go out again, but should wear a mask when around other people.
• If you’ve been exposed to the virus but have had your booster shot, you can continue your normal activities as long as you don’t develop symptoms. You should wear a mask around others for 10 days.
• If you are unvaccinated or haven’t had a booster shot and are exposed to the virus, you should stay at home for five days. If you don’t have symptoms after five days, you can go out again, with a mask. It’s best to take a test to confirm you’re not infected before resuming normal activities, though.

The guidance is controversial because 20% to 40% of people may still be contagious five days after they experience symptoms. France said he thinks the CDC guidance threads the needle of reducing infections while minimizing disruption.

“There’s this nice change that will get our workforce back in,” he said. “As we know, we have staffing challenges across all areas of our economy.”

Covid-19: France breaks European daily record again with 208,000 new cases [FRANCE 24 English, 29 Dec 2021]

Global Covid-19 infections have hit a record high over the past seven-day period, Reuters data showed on Wednesday, with France, the United States and Australia all reporting they had broken their previous daily records of new infections as transmission of the Omicron variant surges.

According to Reuters, almost 900,000 cases were detected on average each day around the world between December 22 and 28, with myriad countries posting new all-time highs over the past 24 hours, including the United States, Australia and many in Europe.

France, which had already topped Europe with 180,000 confirmed new cases per 24 hours on Tuesday, on Wednesday announced the number had now soared to 208,000 cases.

"I wouldn't call Omicron a wave anymore, I would call it a groundswell," French Health Minister Olivier Véran told lawmakers. "Given the numbers we have been seeing these past few days, we're talking about a landslide."

Véran said that at the current rate, two people in France test positive for Covid-19 every second, noting that the situation in hospitals was worrying.

As of this Friday, Paris will again make it mandatory for people to wear facemasks outdoors.

06:02
Almost two years after China first alerted the World Health Organisation (WHO) to a cluster of “viral pneumonia” cases of unknown origin in the central city of Wuhan, the regularly mutating coronavirus is still wreaking havoc, forcing numerous governments to rethink quarantine and test rules.

Although studies have suggested the Omicron variant is less deadly than some of its predecessors, the huge numbers of people testing positive mean that hospitals in some countries might soon be overwhelmed, while businesses might struggle to carry on operating because of workers having to quarantine.

“Delta and Omicron are now twin threats driving up cases to record numbers, leading to spikes in hospitalisation and deaths,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Tedros told a news briefing on Wednesday.

“I am highly concerned that Omicron, being highly transmissible and spreading at the same time as Delta, is leading to a tsunami of cases.”

00:33
New records everywhere
Aside from France, Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Malta also registered record numbers of new cases on Tuesday and Wednesday, while the average number of daily Covid-19 cases in the United States hit a record 265,000, according to data kept by John Hopkins University. The previous mark was 250,000 cases per day, set in mid-January.

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, in television interviews on Wednesday, said she expected many more US cases ahead.

1:41
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that 90 percent of patients ending up in intensive care had not received booster vaccines, which medics say is the best protection against Omicron.

“The Omicron variant continues to cause real problems, you’re seeing cases rising in hospitals, but it is obviously milder than the Delta variant,” Johnson said.

New daily infections in Australia spiked to nearly 18,300 on Wednesday, eclipsing the previous pandemic high of around 11,300 a day earlier.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his country needed “a gear change” to manage overburdened laboratories, with long walk-in and drive-in queues reported in a number of areas.

Testing bottlenecks have also built in Europe, including Spain where demand for free Covid-19 testing kits provided by Madrid’s regional government far outstripped supply, with long queues forming outside pharmacies.

‘I just want to go home’

A number of governments were also increasingly worried by the huge numbers of people being forced into self-isolation because they had been in contact with a coronavirus sufferer.
“We just can’t have everybody just being taken out of circulation because they just happen to be at a particular place at a particular time,” Australia’s Morrison told reporters.

Italy was expected to relax some quarantine rules on Wednesday over fears the country will soon grind to a halt given how many people are having to self-isolate protectively, with the number of new cases hitting 98,030 on Wednesday, from 78,313 a day earlier.

However, China showed no let up in its policy of zero tolerance to outbreaks, keeping 13 million people in the city of Xian under rigid lockdown for a seventh day as new Covid-19 infections persisted, with 151 cases reported on Tuesday.

“I just want to go home,” said a 32-year-old mechanic, who was in Xian last week for a business trip when the city was effectively shut off from the outside world.

No cases of Omicron have been announced in Xian so far.

Many countries are still grappling with the earlier Delta variant, including Poland, which reported 794 Covid-related deaths on Wednesday - the highest number in the fourth wave of the pandemic.

Deputy Health Minister Waldemar Kraska said more than 75 percent of those who died were unvaccinated.

Early data from Britain, South Africa and Denmark suggests there is a reduced risk of hospitalisation for Omicron compared with Delta, the WHO said in its latest epidemiological report.

However, the report said further data was needed to understand how severity of illness may be impacted by vaccination and, or, prior infection.

The surge in cases is coinciding with the New Year holidays, normally a period of parties and travel. Some countries, such as Italy, have cancelled public celebrations, while authorities in Japan urged residents to keep end-of-year gatherings small.

Greece, meanwhile, on Wednesday announced it had banned music in bars in a bid to limit New Year’s Eve parties, and thereby stem the spread of the coronavirus.

France reports ‘dizzying’ daily record of 208,000 COVID cases [Al Jazeera English, 29 Dec 2021]

France breaks another national and European record of daily COVID infections, as Omicron and Delta variants spread.

France is seeing a “tsunami” of COVID-19 infections, with 208,000 cases reported during the past 24 hours on Wednesday, a new national and European record, Health Minister Olivier Veran has told lawmakers.

France has been breaking infection records repeatedly during the past few days, with Tuesday’s 180,000 cases already the highest for a country in Europe, according to data on Covidtracker.fr.

“This means that 24 hours a day, day and night, every second in our country, two French people are diagnosed positive,” Veran said. “We have never experienced such a situation,” he said, describing the increase in cases as “dizzying”.

Global COVID-19 infections have hit record highs during the past seven days, data from the Reuters and AFP news agencies showed on Wednesday, as the new Omicron variant spreads rapidly, keeping many workers at home and overwhelming testing centres.

The situation in French hospitals was already worrying because of the Delta variant, Veran said, with Omicron yet to have an impact, something he said would eventually happen.

“We have two enemies,” he said, referring to the two main variants. “As for Omicron, I would no longer talk about a wave. This is a groundswell, where several waves combine to form one massive wave,” he said.

The minister had warned on Monday that France could reach more than 250,000 daily COVID cases by the beginning of January, as a week of unrestricted Christmas parties and family get-togethers fuel the spread of the disease.

After a cabinet meeting to discuss the crisis on Monday, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced several measures to try to contain the epidemic, but shied away from the mass closures or lockdowns that have been reintroduced in other EU countries such as the Netherlands.

Some of the new restrictions, such as a ban on eating on high-speed trains or standing up in cafes and bars, were denounced by critics and political opponents as being too limited to be effective.

The government announced on Wednesday that the country’s roughly 1,600 nightclubs would remain closed for a further three weeks after they were ordered shut on December 6.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has also encouraged local officials to limit public New Year’s Eve gatherings, in particular by requiring face masks outdoors and stepping up police patrols to enforce a ban on public alcohol consumption for the night.

Pressure on hospitals
Daily hospital admissions for COVID in France are averaging above 1,000 a day, still well below the peak of 3,500 during the first wave in April 2020 or nearly 3,000 in the second wave in November last year.

But the exponential growth in case numbers is causing alarm.

The French Federation of Hospitals said on Tuesday that “additional measures in order to protect public hospitals are necessary in order to avoid saturating health services and emergency wards which will inevitably lead to more cancelled operations”.

Many hospitals, particularly those in the hotspots of France and the southern Mediterranean coast, are already cancelling non-essential operations due to the surge in COVID admissions, most of which are unvaccinated people.

Despite France having one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, with 90 percent of the eligible population having had at last one dose, Veran said that there were still five million unvaccinated people who are old enough to get the jabs.

The government is staking its strategy on a new law that will be debated in parliament starting Wednesday that would require citizens to show proof of vaccination in order to enter restaurants, cinemas, museums and other public venues.

The new “vaccine pass” system will replace the previous “health pass”, which could be obtained by providing a recent negative COVID test in the absence of vaccination.

Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler, reporting from Paris, said there would be a lot of opposition to the move.

“Some people say that’s a controversial measure,” she said.

“But what the government is saying is that [unvaccinated people] are really the ones who often end up in hospital, and this is a way of trying to motivate them to go and get jabbed.”

Spurred by Omicron, Europe Is Setting Coronavirus Infection Records Every Day [The New York Times, 29 Dec 2021]

By Marc Santora

The surge of cases is causing chaos as people scramble to obtain tests, businesses grapple with staff shortages and New Year’s festivities are thrown into question.

LONDON — Across Europe, records for new coronavirus infections are being set day after day, as the Omicron variant tears through populations with a swiftness outpacing anything witnessed over the past two years of the pandemic.

Like the United States, which recorded a new high in daily cases on Tuesday, European nations are struggling against an onslaught of infections from a virus that shows no sign of going away. Driven, health officials suspect, by the Omicron variant, Britain, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy and Spain all set records for new daily case counts this week.

There are early indications that the variant might be milder than previous versions of the virus — with vaccinations, boosters and previous infections all offering some protection against serious illness and death. But the surge of infections is causing chaos, as people scramble to obtain tests, businesses grapple with staff shortages and New Year’s festivities are thrown into question.

The World Health Organization warned on Wednesday that the circulation of the Delta variant and the rapid spread of Omicron could overwhelm health care systems, even as early data showed that vaccines continue to offer some protection to vaccinated people from severe illness and death from both variants.

“Delta and Omicron are now twin threats driving up cases to record numbers, leading to spikes in hospitalization and deaths,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director general, said at a news conference in Geneva. “I am highly concerned that Omicron, being highly transmissible and spreading at the same time as Delta, is leading to a tsunami of cases.”

In England and Northern Ireland on Wednesday, there were no P.C.R. test appointments available to book online, and around midday, many people reported that none were available to order online through the British government’s health services.

Leyla Hannbeck, the chief executive of the Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies, a British organization representing community pharmacies, said the uptick in cases and a recent shift on government guidelines around testing has led to a surge in demand for rapid lateral-flow tests.

“We have people coming in every two to five minutes asking for lateral-flow testing,” she said. “And we don’t know when it’s going to arrive back in stock, and it’s completely out of our control.”

In Spain — which is reporting roughly 100,000 daily infections for the first time in the pandemic — contact-tracing efforts are being overwhelmed and people are lining up outside hospitals urgently seeking tests so they can be approved for medical leave. Although Spain is not seeing a sharp rise in people needing intensive care, Mario Fontán of the Spanish Epidemiology Society said that concerns over infection were rising.

“A sensation of greater chaos has been created compared to the severity that the clinical picture requires,” he told the Spanish news media.

Portugal had one of the most successful vaccination campaigns in the world, reaching nearly every person eligible and driving down the toll wrought by the Delta variant. But infections are climbing again, with the health minister, Marta Temido, warning that the number of infections could double every eight days, given the current trend of Omicron cases.

Even in the Netherlands, which nearly two weeks ago reimposed a nationwide lockdown, Omicron is spreading, causing more than 50 percent of infections in the past week, replacing Delta as the dominant variant, according to the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment.

“The faster spread of this Omicron variant will lead to additional infections in the near future, which will also increase the number of hospital admissions,” the institute said on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the Dutch foreign ministry said all travelers from the United States — which is also setting daily records of infection — will have to quarantine for five days and have a negative coronavirus test to enter the country.

Since data on hospitalizations lags behind reports of infection, scientists caution that it is too soon to gauge the Omicron wave’s effect on health care systems.

At the moment, none of the nations in Europe setting records for infections are reporting precipitous rises in hospitalizations, although the surge is only a few weeks old.

The W.H.O. warned on Wednesday that it was not just patients that were stressing the system, but health care workers falling ill and needing to isolate.

Because Omicron appears to have been spreading in Britain a few weeks ahead of most nations, health experts are looking there for signs of the variant’s severity. England recorded 117,093 cases on Tuesday, a new high, but the number of people needing intensive care remains below January’s peak.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson cited this preliminary data to justify his decision not to step up restrictions.

“We’re looking at the data, and what we’re seeing is that we’ve got cases certainly going up — we’ve got a lot of cases of Omicron,” he said, “but on the other hand, we can see the data about the relative mildness of Omicron.”

But experts cautioned that a fuller picture will be available only in early January.

Even if the percentage of people who need hospital care is significantly lower than in past waves, the sheer number of people being infected could still cause intense pressure on health care systems.

At the moment, the Omicron variant is spreading faster than scientists can provide answers. That has meant a holiday season of uncertainty, anxiety and shifting restrictions.

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to Know

The U.S. surge The U.S. record for daily coronavirus cases has been broken, as two highly contagious variants — Delta and Omicron — have spread across the country. The seven-day average of U.S. cases topped 267,000 on Tuesday, according to a New York Times database.

New C.D.C. guidelines Hoping to prevent further disruptions to daily life, the C.D.C. reduced the period that certain infected Americans must sequester to five days from 10. This change applies only to those without symptoms, or those without fevers whose other symptoms are improving.

Staying safe Worried about spreading Covid? Keep yourself and others safe by following some basic guidance on when to test and how to use at-home virus tests (if you can find them). Here is what to do if you test positive for the coronavirus.

Around the world Britain, Denmark, France, Greece and Italy all set records for new daily cases this week. In each country, health officials suspect that Omicron is driving the infections. Globally, thousands of flights were canceled as the Omicron variant began to affect airline crews.

And for many countries, the wave is only starting to rise.

In France, which set a record of 208,000 new daily cases on Wednesday, the most recorded in any European country since the pandemic began, the health minister, Olivier Véran, said the increase was “dizzying.”

“This means that 24 hours a day, day and night, every second in our country, two French people are diagnosed positive,” he said, according to Reuters.

Even though Germany reported a doubling of Omicron cases over the past week, the country’s health minister, Karl Lauterbach, said on Wednesday that the true number of new coronavirus cases has been underreported. He said that fewer people are testing over the holidays and the actual incidence rate of infections is about two or three times higher.

In Italy, the Delta variant remains dominant, but Omicron is gaining ground.

Dr. Mario Sorlini, who is based near Bergamo, Italy — the medieval town known as Europe’s first Covid hot spot after it was ravaged by the virus two years ago — has been watching as case numbers have soared.

Dr. Sorlini recalled scrambling during the first outbreak to find oxygen tanks for patients with pneumonia who could not find a spot in crammed hospitals, as the army took coffins from warehouses for cremation.

But, at the moment, the situation feels different to him. Even though it is too early to know how Omicron will alter the course of the pandemic, his biggest worry so far has been keeping up with a surge in demand for swabs for testing.

The region is also confronting what he called a “mess beyond words,” as fear, infection, and isolation requirements combine to cause widespread staffing shortages.

“We got burned with hot water,” Dr. Sorlini said. “And when people get burned with hot water, cold water scares them, too.”

Will omicron delay the end of the pandemic — or speed it up in 2022? [Vox.com, 29 Dec 2021]

By Sigal Samuel

The variant has changed how we get from “pandemic” to “endemic,” but that doesn’t mean we’re back to square one.

With omicron rates soaring, you may find yourself despairingly asking when — or even if — this pandemic is ever going to end.

The good news is that it will end. Experts agree on that. We’re not going to totally eradicate Covid-19, but we will see it move out of the pandemic phase and into the endemic phase.

Endemicity means the virus will keep circulating in parts of the global population for years, but its prevalence and impact will come down to relatively manageable levels, so it ends up more like the flu than a world-stopping disease.

For an infectious disease to be classed in the endemic phase, the rate of infections has to more or less stabilize across years, rather than showing big, unexpected spikes as Covid-19 has been doing. “A disease is endemic if the reproductive number is stably at one,” Boston University epidemiologist Eleanor Murray explained. “That means one infected person, on average, infects one other person.”

We’re nowhere near that right now. The highly contagious omicron variant means each infected person is infecting more than one other person, with the result that cases are exploding across the globe. Nobody can look at the following chart and reasonably conclude that we’re in endemic territory.

Looking at this data might make you wonder about some of the predictions that were floating around before omicron came on the scene. In the fall, some health experts were saying that they thought the delta variant might represent the last big act for this pandemic, and that we could reach endemicity in 2022.

The outlook is more uncertain now. So how should you be thinking about the trajectory and timeline of the pandemic going into the new year? And how should omicron be shaping your everyday decision-making and risk calculus?

When we’ll know we’re finally in “endemic” territory
Here’s one big question you’d probably like the answer to: Does omicron push endemicity farther off into the future? Or could it actually speed up our path to endemicity by infecting so much of the population so swiftly that we more quickly develop a layer of natural immunity?

“That is really the million-dollar question,” Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, told me. “It’s really hard to say right now.”

That’s partly because endemicity isn’t just about getting the virus’s reproductive number down to one. That’s the bare minimum for earning the endemic classification, but there are other factors that come into play, too: What’s the rate of hospitalizations and deaths? Is the health care system overburdened to the point that there’s a precipitous space or staffing shortage? Are there treatments available to reduce how many people are getting seriously ill?

In general, a virus becomes endemic when we (health experts, governmental bodies, and the public) collectively decide that we’re okay with accepting the level of impact the virus has — that in other words, it no longer constitutes an active crisis.

With omicron surging right now and many governments reimposing stricter precautions as a result, it’s clear we’re still in crisis mode. “But so much depends on the burden it’ll place on the healthcare system,” Rasmussen said. “And that’s going to be different from community to community.”

Even if it turns out to be true that omicron tends to result in milder disease than previous variants (we don’t yet have enough data to say conclusively), a massive increase in cases could still lead to a big increase in hospitalizations and deaths. That could further stress health care systems that are already in dire straits. That’s why Rasmussen concludes that “omicron certainly has the potential to delay endemicity.”

But there are also some hopeful things to bear in mind. “The incredible number of infections is building up population-level immunity. That’ll be crucial in terms of muting future waves,” said Joshua Michaud, associate director for global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In addition to omicron potentially building up some immunity in the vast numbers of people who are becoming infected with it, vaccinations and boosters are also contributing to “a significant immunity wall that’s being built,” he said. But he cautioned that “that’s a wall to the variants we’ve seen already. There could be another variant which could evade immunity down the road.” Some experts are already conjecturing that getting infected with omicron may not give you much cross-protection against other variants, though a small early study showed positive signs on that front.

This is why Ramussen says “the key determinant” of when the pandemic ends is how long it will take to make vaccines accessible around the world (and to combat ongoing vaccine hesitancy). Currently, we’re not vaccinating the globe fast enough to starve the virus of opportunities to mutate into something new and serious. “If only a very small proportion of people are getting access to vaccines, we’re just going to keep playing variant whack-a-mole indefinitely,” Rasmussen said.

In the meantime, we do have another ace up our sleeves, which will hopefully also become available around the globe sooner rather than later: new treatments — like Pfizer’s paxlovid, recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and Merck’s molnupiravir, also FDA approved — that reduce the rates of hospitalization and death from Covid-19.

“Very important in the context of endemicity is the antiviral pills,” Michaud said. “If we have those tools, we’re looking at a very different state going into 2022. People shouldn’t feel like we’re back to square one.”

We’re not back to March 2020. But it makes sense to modify our behavior during the omicron surge.

Dire headlines notwithstanding, we’re in much better shape than we were at the start of the pandemic. We’ve discovered a lot more information about how Covid-19 works. We’ve manufactured effective masks, vaccines, boosters, treatments, and rapid tests.

We’ve also learned that having to hunker down comes at a real cost to our mental and economic health and wellbeing. The cost of a strict lockdown may have been worthwhile in March 2020, but by and large, that’s not what US experts are advising now.

They are, however, urging us to take more precautions than we might have been in the weeks leading up to omicron.

Take Bob Wachter, for example, the chair of the department of medicine at the University of California San Francisco. In the fall, he shifted from being very cautious about Covid-19 to taking some more calculated risks, including dining indoors at restaurants and even hosting an in-person medical conference with 300 attendees. But now that omicron is causing cases to skyrocket, he’s being more cautious again.

“I see the next few months as a time to fortify one’s safety behaviors,” he wrote on Twitter. Here’s how he explained his reasons:

The other experts I spoke to agreed that now is a time to limit risky activities.

“I had taken my foot off the brakes in terms of my own behavior. But I’ve now started to put it on again,” Michaud told me. “I canceled plans to go to New Jersey to visit my family over Christmas. I’m avoiding more indoor environments. As of now, it does make a lot of sense to me to take additional steps to prevent yourself and those around you from getting infected.”

After the omicron wave passes, he said, he envisions relaxing precautions again. Modeling suggests that omicron could peak in mid- to late January in the US, with case rates steeply declining — and activities becoming correspondingly safer again — in February.

Rasmussen is also modifying her behavior in light of omicron, though she emphasizes that’s not the same as going back to a spring 2020-style lockdown. Although she canceled an international flight over the holidays, she still felt comfortable going over to her colleague’s house for a Christmas meal. That’s because she and they had vaccinations, boosters, rapid tests, and great ventilation working in their favor.

“We have a lot more tools at our disposal for dealing with this than we did in March 2020,” she said.

We’ll know endemicity has arrived when those tools — and the long, painful experience of the pandemic itself — has enabled us to fully adapt to the virus, as the virus has adapted to us.

Fauci: Data suggests Omicron less severe than Delta [Axios, 29 Dec 2021]

By Erin Doherty

NIAID director Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that "all indications point to a lesser severity of Omicron versus Delta," citing preliminary data during a White House COVID-19 briefing.

Driving the news: Fauci cited a working paper from the University of Edinburgh that suggests Omicron is associated with a two-thirds reduction in the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization compared to Delta, among other research.

• Fauci added that the "final conclusion about the level of severity in children remains to be determined," and warned that there will be more hospitalizations among children due to the rising number of infections.
• "It is noteworthy, however, that many children are hospitalized with COVID as opposed to because of COVID, reflecting the high degree of penetrance of infection among the pediatric population," Fauci said.

What he's saying: Fauci cautioned that "it is difficult to determine what degree of lessened severity is due to pre-existing immunity or the intrinsically lower virulence of Omicron ... or a combination of both."
• "We should not become complacent, since our hospital system could still be stressed in certain areas of the country," Fauci said.
• "And so to repeat what we say so often and it deserves reemphasis, the risk of severe disease from any circulating variant, including Omicron, is much, much higher for the unvaccinated. And so, adults and children who are eligible, get vaccinated and vaccinated people, get boosted when eligible."

The big picture: Fauci's remarks come as COVID-19 cases are surging rapidly across the nation, largely due to the highly contagious Omicron variant.
• The current seven-day daily average is about 240,400 cases per day, about 60% higher than the previous week, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday.
• The seven day-average of hospitalizations is about 9,000 per day, a 14% increase over the previous week, which "could be due to the fact that hospitalizations tend to lag behind cases by about two weeks, but may also be due to early indications ... of milder disease from Omicron, especially among the vaccinated," Walensky said.

How long can you spread Omicron? [CNN, 29 Dec 2021]

By Rob Picheta

(CNN)If you test positive for Covid-19, you'll be advised to isolate for anywhere from five days to two weeks. It all depends on where you live.

The United States and the United Kingdom have slashed their recommended self-isolation periods for asymptomatic people -- and more countries may soon follow suit, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant threatens to keep hospital staff and other key workers at home.
In the US, people can now leave isolation if they don't have symptoms after five days, followed by five days in which they should wear a mask around others. Last week, the UK cut the period to seven days for people who produce two consecutive negative lateral flow tests.

It comes amid record-setting case figures in both nations, and marks the first time since Omicron emerged that major countries have diverged from the World Health Organization's recommended 10-day isolation period.

But most countries still follow the 10-day marker, while others, such as Germany, require up to 14 days in isolation. The disparities have led some to wonder exactly when, and how long, people are infectious with the Omicron variant.

The moves were made amid worries over the availability of key workers. "If you are asymptomatic and you are infected, we want to get people back to their jobs -- particularly those with essential jobs -- to keep our society running smoothly," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN this week.

But there is some emerging data behind the changes as well. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said their decision was "motivated by science demonstrating that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs early in the course of illness, generally in the 1-2 days prior to onset of symptoms and the 2-3 days after."

An early CDC study, released on Tuesday, examined an Omicron cluster in Nebraska and found that the time between exposure and infection -- known as the incubation period -- may be around three days. That's shorter than the Delta strain, which studies estimate has a four-day incubation period.

A similar study of a Christmas party in Norway in which dozens became infected found comparable results.

"There is accumulating evidence, for vaccinated people, that if we are asymptomatic we are very unlikely to be infectious after about five to seven days," Brown University's Associate Dean of Public Health Dr. Megan Ranney told CNN on Tuesday.

Emerging evidence that Omicron may be less severe than Delta likely played a role in the moves too.

But the new guidelines have still prompted some debate in the medical community, with experts yet to fully understand Omicron.

"For the unvaccinated, the data doesn't really back up that you become non-infectious after five days," Ranney said. "I'm quite worried about these new recommendations."

She suggested having different guidance for unvaccinated people until more data comes in -- which could also have the "added boost" of encouraging people to take up the vaccine if they haven't already.

Erin Bromage, a biology professor at UMass Dartmouth, added on CNN Wednesday that there is "absolutely no data that I am aware of" to support the switch in guidance.

He added that people can still test positive on antigen tests up to seven or eight days after their initial test, even if they don't have symptoms. Unlike the UK, where antigen tests are more plentiful, the US guidance is not dependent on getting a negative result.

Omicron is nonetheless tearing through workforces in several countries, and it's likely more nations will shorten their isolation periods in the new year if the burden on hospitals grows. "With the sheer volume of new cases ... one of the things we want to be careful of is that we don't have so many people out," Fauci said.

YOU ASKED. WE ANSWERED.
Three preprint papers released last week revealed some early good news about the severity of the Omicron variant.

The studies -- one from England, another from Scotland and a third from South Africa -- suggested that Omicron is associated with a lower risk of hospitalization than the Delta variant.
The degree to which that risk is decreased ranged from between 40% to 80% across the studies.

That research included preliminary data, and the papers haven't yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But they add to the growing evidence that the new strain, while highly transmissible, may be less severe.

Nonetheless, a lower risk of hospitalization could easily be offset by the higher number of concurrent infections that Omicron is causing in several countries. That's why experts are urging caution -- and encouraging anyone who hasn't taken up the vaccine or booster to do so before Omicron takes hold.

‘BSL-3 lab capable of testing all corona variants’ [The News International, 29 Dec 2021]

LAHORE: The Primary & Secondary Healthcare Department (P&SHD) Secretary Imran Sikander Baloch visited building of Punjab AIDS Control Programme (PACP). Project Director PACP Dr Faisal Masood accompanied him.

LAHORE: The Primary & Secondary Healthcare Department (P&SHD) Secretary Imran Sikander Baloch visited building of Punjab AIDS Control Programme (PACP). Project Director PACP Dr Faisal Masood accompanied him.

Secretary health reviewed facilities available in BSL-3 lab regarding gene sequencing for Omicron variant. He visited different labs, committee room and library.

Dr Faisal briefed the secretary health on BSL-3 lab, gene sequencing mechanism and Omicron testing. The secretary said, "Punjab AIDS Control Programme was one of its kind as its BSL-3 lab was equipped with the latest machinery. The lab is capable of testing of AIDS, Hepatitis and other viral diseases, including COVID-19."

Talking about Omicron variant of COVID-19, he said, "BSL-3 lab of Punjab AIDS Control Programme is quite capable of gene sequencing of all variants of COVID-19 and since the confirmation of Omicron variant can only be done with gene sequencing, it is done here as well. Testing kits acquired from National Institute of Health will no doubt help speed up the testing and identification of Omicron variant. The efforts of Punjab AIDS Control Programme in corona and AIDS prevention are commendable.

LGH: Post Graduate Medical Institute & Ameer Uddin Medical College Principal Prof Dr Sardar Al-freed Zafar has said that as per directions of CM Usman Buzdar and Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid, Central Research Lab (CRL) of Lahore General Hospital will be providing omicron diagnostic facility to the general public. “These tests will be free-of-cost while a same day report will also be provided which will be helpful to the citizens,” he said while visiting the CRL of LGH where MS Dr Amir Ghafoor Mufti, Director CRL Dr Ghazala Ruby, Dr Abdul Aziz and others were present.

PMA: Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has expressed concern over the incidents of jubilation firing and demanded the government ban it. In a statement Tuesday, PMA (Centre) Honorary Secretary General Dr SM Qaisar Sajjad said that over the years, the trend of firing on Chand Raat, New Year’s Eve, Independence Day, wedding ceremonies, victory celebrations especially by political parties got stronger. This celebratory firing results in grief for others, killing and injuring innocent people. The PMA office-bearer demanded the government deal strictly with the menace of firing and ban this tradition.

Denmark smashes daily Corona record - The Post [The Copenhagen Post - Danish news in english, 29 Dec 2021]

by Christian W

On Monday, a record 16,164 people tested positive for COVID-19 over the previous 24 hours.
Now, that record has been comprehensively broken with news from the State Serum Institute (SSI) that 23,228 people have tested positive since yesterday.

According to SSI, part of the explanation for the high figure is the immense testing activity that has followed Christmas.

A total of 189,512 PCR tests were conducted over the past 24 hours.

The high number of cases has also translated into 173 new hospitalisations, the highest one-day figure since 28 December 2020.

In total, there are 675 people being treated in hospital – 77 in intensive care wards and 55 on respirators.

Meanwhile, another 16 people have died of corona-related causes in the past 24 hours.

The health authorities stated this week that the new Omikron mutation has become the dominant variation in Denmark, accounting for 76 percent of all new cases.

The State Serum Institute registered over 20,000 cases in the past 24 hours for the first time since the pandemic started