New Coronavirus News from 25 Jan 2022

‘Omicron won’t be the last variant’: Experts say pandemic’s end not yet in sight [Haaretz, 25 Jan 2022]

by Ido Efrati

Israeli health experts think it is too early to determine that omicron will make COVID endemic, and that antibodies from the less virulent variant won't necessarily provide long-term protection

The rapid spread of the omicron variant has raised hopes that this is the final chord of the coronavirus pandemic. The basis for this hope is the idea that widespread exposure to the virus – in a particularly infectious but less deadly variant – can create a broad protective umbrella over large parts of the population, which, along with vaccines, will make the virus endemic.

It will continue to circulate, but as a result of increased immunity as a result of vaccines and infection, there will be much less transmission, severe illness and death, and life can return to something resembling the pre-pandemic normal.

Although the director for the World Health Organization in Europe, Dr. Hans Kluge, said it was “plausible” that Europe is moving toward a “kind of pandemic endgame,” he and Israeli medical experts cautioned that mass infection will not end the pandemic.

Kluge said this week that omicron could infect 60 percent of Europeans by March, and when the current surge in illness ebbs, “there will be for quite some weeks and months a global immunity,” as a result of a combination of vaccinations and antibodies in recovered COVID-19 patients.

Kluge further told AFP that this situation should last until the end of the year – by which time, he said, COVID-19 might return, but not necessarily as a pandemic. However, he stressed that caution is still necessary despite the optimism, due to the virus’s ability to mutate. He noted that "endemic means ... that it is possible to predict what's going to happen. This virus has surprised [us] more than once so we have to be very careful."

Kluge’s remarks made waves among medical experts in Israel and elsewhere. Dr. Dorit Nitzan, regional emergency director at the WHO Europe, who was present at Kluge’s interview, said that the message taken from his remarks was distorted and is at odds with the truth.

“At no point in the interview did Kluge condition exiting pandemic status on mass omicron infection," Nitzan said. "We do not think that mass infection is the solution or that it will bring about the end of the pandemic." She added that it was possible that this year will see the virus become endemic, “but the road there should be taken with measured steps. The road is based on raising vaccination rates around the world, monitoring illness, testing, and lots of personal responsibility.”

Nitzan estimated that “omicron won’t be the last variant,” noting that the current levels of infection have a price, as well: “We’re seeing many hospitalizations, including a rise in children's hospitalizations, and many at-risk populations are paying a heavy price.” She stressed that the WHO believes that once 70 to 80 percent of the world’s population is vaccinated, the focus can shift to resuming normalcy.

“Eighty-five percent of Africa’s population has yet to receive a first vaccine dose, so we’re asking countries that have accelerated the vaccination process, like Israel, to take stock and make it easier for everyone by directing vaccines to under-vaccinated countries,” said Nitzan.

Prof. Cyril Cohen, head of the immunotherapy lab at Bar-Ilan University, also believes talk of ending the pandemic is premature. He pointed out the emergence of a new variant, BA2, “a relative of omicron,” of which some 100 cases have been discovered in Israel. At this point, there is no indication that BA2 behaves differently from omicron.

Cohen concedes that exposure to the variant may improve the body’s immunity to future variants, but “it’s not something that’s certain.” Explaining the difference between endemic and pandemic states, Cohen gave the flu as an example. “The flu kills a quarter million to half a million people around the world every year, but it’s endemic. It’s not everywhere year-round.
And flu has better seasons and worse seasons, better and worse vaccines, and once in a while comes a violent strain, like bird or swine flu, turning it from endemic to pandemic,” Cohen explained.

Therefore it is unclear to what extent broad and accumulated exposure to different variants provides a defensive barrier capable of halting the pandemic. Cohen added that “repeated exposure or infection to different variants of the virus supposedly increases the immune system’s ‘target bank,’ but that doesn’t mean it can always completely prevent the disease.”

Dr. Oren Kobiler, virology expert at Tel Aviv University, said that the level of protection promised by omicron infection will not persist for a prolonged period. “No doubt, those who are vaccinated or recovering and contract omicron have milder illness in most cases. At the same time, just last week 15,000 people died of COVID in the U.S., where it’s mostly omicron, and Denmark, which already had an omicron wave, is now experiencing a BA2 wave.”

Kobiler added that even should omicron decline, the deadlier delta variant is expected to make a comeback. “Some experts say the omicron doesn’t even make delta disappear. It had declined, but not disappeared completely, and once omicron is gone chances are not great that the protection we got from the omicron will hold against delta.”

And yet, according to Kobiler, eventually COVID-19 will become seasonal, like the flu. “The question is when, he says, “and another question is – will omicron make it happen? You have to be very optimistic to say that, and I don’t see the data to support it.”

Leyden Labs, with license from J&J, secures $140M to stop viruses 'at the gate' with nasal spray [FierceBiotech, 25 Jan 2022]

by Kyle LaHucik

Pandemic preparedness is a big buzzword these days in public health, and Leyden Labs wants to put the words into action with an intranasal spray to go after coronavirus variants, the flu and future viruses. The biotech has secured about $200 million to bankroll its mission.

That includes a $140 million series B disclosed Tuesday that will fund preclinical and early-stage testing of Leyden's platform, aimed at "attacking the viruses at the gate," said Koenraad Wiedhaup, CEO and founder, in an interview.

Helping lead the company is an executive with COVID-19 monoclonal antibody expertise. Chief Commercial Officer Suha Jhaveri helped launch Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline's solo agent sotrovimab as vice president and head of commercial at Vir.

The Dutch biotech will deploy the proceeds on developing a platform that induces protection in the mucosa, or the nose and throat, from future variants of SARS-CoV-2, the flu and other emerging respiratory viruses, Wiedhaup said.

The nascent biotech, formed in the early days of the pandemic, hit a major milestone last week by in-licensing a human monoclonal antibody for influenza A and B from Johnson & Johnson's Janssen unit. Leyden paid an undisclosed upfront fee and will dole out biobucks to Janssen in exchange for the exclusive worldwide license to develop and market CR9114 for administration in the nose and throat.

CR9114 was one of three human monoclonal antibodies discovered by J&J unit Crucell in conjunction with scientists at Scripps Research and the Centre of Influenza Research at the University of Hong Kong. The team revealed CR9114 in an August 2012 report in the journal Science.

"The awareness rises that the risk of severe respiratory infections by viruses like influenza increases with age while the response to seasonal influenza vaccines diminishes at old age. Simultaneously bird or avian flu have never been as rampant," said Jaap Goudsmit, M.D., Ph.D., Leyden chief scientific officer, in a statement. "However, current seasonal flu vaccines for the elderly protect poorly, if at all, against these influenza strains."

Wiedhaup declined to provide details on timing of clinical entry for the flu program nor the coronavirus variant work. The biotech will explore testing the nasal spray as a way to protect against initial infection, as well as on top of existing vaccines that activate the immune system. The goal is to ward off specific variants but also multiple strains, the CEO said.

The 40-person biotech is led by the former McKinsey partner and Goudsmit, who was previously a senior adviser at Janssen and before that global head of the J&J unit's Prevention Center after the pharma acquired Crucell in 2011. Also in the C-suite is Chief Business Officer Ronald Brus, another Crucell veteran.

Series A investors Casdin Capital and GV led the series B, which included participation from SoftBank, Invus, Bluebird Ventures and existing backers F-Prime and Byers Capital.

‘Peace, freedom, no dictatorship!’: Germans protest against Covid restrictions [The Guardian, 25 Jan 2022]

by Kate Connolly

The university city of Cottbus held one of 2,000 rallies across Germany on Monday, stoked by the far right

On Monday evening on the dot of 7pm people emerged from dimly lit side streets and gathered on the Oberkirchplatz square in Cottbus for what has become a weekly ritual in towns and cities across Germany: a protest against coronavirus protection measures.

The demonstrations have grown in strength as cases of the Omicron variant have surged, and in recent weeks a looming decision on bringing in a vaccine mandate has become the focus of protesters’ ire. More than 2,000 rallies were held nationwide on Monday, drawing tens of thousands of participants.

In Cottbus, a university city south-east of Berlin, a familiar pattern played out. Moments after the protest started, police declared over megaphone that it was illegal – the participants did not wear masks or physically distance from each other. Groups then broke away and began the Spaziergänge, walks that snake in a variety of directions and are designed to overwhelm any police response.

Dressed in padded coats and woolly hats, the protesters were an inconspicuous crowd. “We are just having an evening stroll,” one woman smirked amiably from under a red woollen beret. “Exercising our right to stretch our legs.”

The gentle click of heels and umbrella studs on wet cobbled stones was quickly drowned out, however, by a man who bellowed “Frieden, Freiheit, keine Diktatur!” (Peace, freedom, no dictatorship) then “Widerstand!” (Resistance).

A woman nearby took up the cry with “Wir sind das Volk!” (We are the people) – the chant that echoed around cities across communist east Germany in 1989 before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Those willing to talk mostly said they wanted to show local and national politicians they had had enough of restrictions. Several said they were not vaccinated; some refused to say. Hardly any were willing to reveal their names.

Germany toughens Covid restrictions as Omicron variant takes hold

“I just want my freedom back,” said one elderly woman. Another younger woman said she was trying to stop the government from forcibly vaccinating her nine-year-old, though there is currently no plan to oblige parents to have children vaccinated. A physiotherapist, one of the few protesters who was wearing a mask, said she was fearful of losing her job if she refuses to get vaccinated under plans for a mandate for medical staff, due to be introduced next month.

Asked why there was need for resistance, Maik, a landscape gardener who refused to wear a mask – calling them “chin nappies” – said: “When injustice becomes law, resistance is our duty.”
There is growing evidence that the protests are being manipulated behind the scenes by rightwing populists and far-right groups, who see issues such as restrictions on gatherings, insistence on the wearing of medical masks as well as a possible vaccine mandate for adults as topics ripe for political exploitation.

Zukunft Heimat (Future Homeland), a far-right group founded in 2015 at the height of the refugee crisis that spreads a nationalist, anti-refugee message, coordinates much of the activity around demonstrations in the state of Brandenburg, including Cottbus.

Ahead of Monday’s rallies, it posted a message from one of its co-founders, Christoph Berndt, a dentist who is also the parliamentary leader of the far-right populist AfD in Brandenburg and has been a speaker at anti-refugee Pegida rallies. He called on people to “defend our freedom and our democracy …” against a government which is “treating its citizens with disdain”.

Berndt has previously questioned whether anyone has died of Covid, said he does not believe the virus exists, and refused to wear a mask because it is a “symbol of suppression”.

Protesters in Cottbus in December. Photograph: Frank Hammerschmidt/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa
On chat rooms and in conversations on messaging apps about the rallies, people talk about wanting to topple the government, comparing the administration to a dictatorship. Those who once rallied against the former chancellor, Angela Merkel, over her refugee policy now rail against her successor, Olaf Scholz, and his health minister, Karl Lauterbach.

Some refer, online and in person – with what generally appears as glee – to a conspiracy theory called Tag X (Day X) that predicts Germany’s “entire system” will collapse due to critical infrastructure being disabled by quarantine measures.

Rally participants are encouraged to “put sand into the cogs of a system” already perceived to be on its last legs, and lighthearted references are made to a “civil war mood”.

At the time of the refugee crisis, rightwing extremists linked to the far-right Identitarian movement, the rightwing-focused advertising agency One Per Cent and the thinktank Institut für Staatspolitik (IfS) built a digital map, showing the location of anti-Islam protests across Germany. People could put in their postcode and find their nearest rally.

A similar map has been produced for the coronavirus “Spaziergang” movement, created by the far-right association Filmkunstkollektiv, whose members and supporters include Identitarians, members of the IfS, and One Per Cent.

Germany reports record number of daily Covid cases

Filmkunstkollektiv is also known to have produced film material for the AfD, recently accompanying its youth wing on a “vaccine strike” in Berlin. It also has an association with the far-right Compact magazine, whose latest cover depicts a young man with needles and syringes embedded in his body, under the title “Vaccine dictatorship – being boosted to death”.
Much of the wind for the protests has come from neighbouring Austria, where plans for a vaccine mandate and the fightback against it are more inflamed. There, the founder of the Identitarian movement, Martin Sellner, has referred to vaccine passports and fines as “totalitarian instruments”.

This mindset was reflected in some of the protesters on Monday night, even those who declared themselves “apolitical”.

In a chat group on an instant messaging service that provides a running commentary of the Monday protests, an unvaccinated woman wrote that since she has had to to abide by rules that ban those not vaccinated or recovered from many non-essential activities, “it is possible to put oneself in the shoes of Jews who suddenly had their basic rights removed from them during the Third Reich”.

Such remarks have been widely condemned. Experts on Germany’s constitution have warned that the victimhood narrative expressed by many of the protesters is in danger of being exploited by extremist elements. They cite the murder last September of a petrol pump attendant shot by a man after he refused to serve him for not wearing a mask as proof that they are not exaggerating.

Less than an hour into the rally in Cottbus on Monday night, the several hundred peaceful protesters were playing a game of cat and mouse with the police, who managed to kettle in one group next to a Glühwein kiosk.

There were some wild theories doing the rounds. A primary school teacher called Brigitte, walking with a group of friends towards the old market square, said she gave credence to a theory that the vaccine campaign is “an attempt to thin out the world’s population”. The 73% of Germans who are vaccinated are supposed to die, she said. “If this is the case, then I am one of the 26% who will live to make this nation great again.” Asked what the source for the theory was, she replied she “read it on one of my newsfeeds”.

UK Covid: 'Unprecedented' coronavirus rates seen in January as one in 23 infected [MyLondon, 25 Jan 2022]

By Josh Bolton & Nina Massey

Omicron 'almost completely replaced' Delta, the data suggests

There were 'unprecedented' levels of Covid in January with one in 23 people in England infected.

This is the highest figure recorded by the Imperial College London's study which began in May 2020.

It found that the highest prevalence was in primary school children, with 7.81% infected from January 5 to 20.

In the overall population in England, 4.41% were infected.

The figure was three times higher than the prevalence in the previous round of the study, which looked at November 23 to December 14.

However, the data suggests the peak of the wave was around January 5 and cases flattened off over the following weeks.

Professor Paul Elliott, director of the React programme from Imperial’s School of Public Health, said: “There is good news in our data in that infections had been rapidly dropping during January, but they are still extremely high and may have recently stalled at a very high prevalence.

“Of particular concern is that there is rapidly increasing prevalence among children now they are mixing more following the start of the school term and, compared with December, prevalence in older people aged 65-plus has increased seven- to 12-fold, which may lead to increased hospitalisations.

“It’s therefore vital that we continue to monitor the situation closely to understand the impact of the Omicron variant, which now makes up almost all infections in the country.”

Meanwhile, of the 3,582 people who said whether or not they have previously had Covid, two thirds (64.6%) reported a past infection.

Researchers urged caution, however, saying it is unknown when those past infections were and that PCR tests can return positive results for more than 90 days after diagnosis.

The increase in prevalence corresponds with Omicron becoming the dominant variant in England, the researchers added.

Over the study period, prevalence increased in every region compared to the previous report, with the highest figure recorded in the North East at 6.85%, followed by Yorkshire and the Humber at 5.58%.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: “It’s reassuring to see Covid-19 infections beginning to slow across the country as we move back to Plan A.

“Covid-19 rates are still high so, as we learn to live with the virus, it is vital we continue to be vigilant – wash your hands, let in fresh air, get tested and, if you haven’t already, get boosted now.”