New Coronavirus News from 26 Nov 2021

Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern [World Health Organization, 26 Nov 2021]

The Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution (TAG-VE) is an independent group of experts that periodically monitors and evaluates the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and assesses if specific mutations and combinations of mutations alter the behaviour of the virus.
The TAG-VE was convened on 26 November 2021 to assess the SARS-CoV-2 variant: B.1.1.529.

The B.1.1.529 variant was first reported to WHO from South Africa on 24 November 2021.
The epidemiological situation in South Africa has been characterized by three distinct peaks in reported cases, the latest of which was predominantly the Delta variant. In recent weeks, infections have increased steeply, coinciding with the detection of B.1.1.529 variant. The first known confirmed B.1.1.529 infection was from a specimen collected on 9 November 2021.

This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning. Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, as compared to other VOCs. The number of cases of this variant appears to be increasing in almost all provinces in South Africa. Current SARS-CoV-2 PCR diagnostics continue to detect this variant. Several labs have indicated that for one widely used PCR test, one of the three target genes is not detected (called S gene dropout or S gene target failure) and this test can therefore be used as marker for this variant, pending sequencing confirmation. Using this approach, this variant has been detected at faster rates than previous surges in infection, suggesting that this variant may have a growth advantage.

There are a number of studies underway and the TAG-VE will continue to evaluate this variant.

WHO will communicate new findings with Member States and to the public as needed.

Based on the evidence presented indicative of a detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology, the TAG-VE has advised WHO that this variant should be designated as a VOC, and the WHO has designated B.1.1.529 as a VOC, named Omicron.

As such, countries are asked to do the following:
• enhance surveillance and sequencing efforts to better understand circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants.
• submit complete genome sequences and associated metadata to a publicly available database, such as GISAID.
• report initial cases/clusters associated with VOC infection to WHO through the IHR mechanism.
• where capacity exists and in coordination with the international community, perform field investigations and laboratory assessments to improve understanding of the potential impacts of the VOC on COVID-19 epidemiology, severity, effectiveness of public health and social measures, diagnostic methods, immune responses, antibody neutralization, or other relevant characteristics.

Individuals are reminded to take measures to reduce their risk of COVID-19, including proven public health and social measures such as wearing well-fitting masks, hand hygiene, physical distancing, improving ventilation of indoor spaces, avoiding crowded spaces, and getting vaccinated.

For reference, WHO has working definitions for SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Interest (VOI) and Variant of Concern (VOC).

A SARS-CoV-2 VOI is a SARS-CoV-2 variant:
• with genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect virus characteristics such as transmissibility, disease severity, immune escape, diagnostic or therapeutic escape; AND
• that has been identified as causing significant community transmission or multiple COVID-19 clusters, in multiple countries with increasing relative prevalence alongside increasing number of cases over time, or other apparent epidemiological impacts to suggest an emerging risk to global public health.

A SARS-CoV-2 VOC is a SARS-CoV-2 variant that meets the definition of a VOI (see above) and, through a comparative assessment, 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

Dr. Francis Collins on what we know about the Omicron variant so far [NPR, 26 Nov 2021]

By AUDIE CORNISH, FacebookTwitter, ELENA BURNETT and ASHLEY BROWN

NPR's Audie Cornish speaks with National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins about how the new COVID-19 variant might affect U.S. response and where the national strategy goes from here.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
There is officially a new COVID-19 variant that the World Health Organization is classifying as one of concern. Today, the WHO put a Greek letter on it, dubbing it the omicron variant. There's still a lot of - there's still a lot scientists don't know about it, but since it was first identified in South Africa this month, it's also been reported in Europe and Asia. And the U.S. will ban travel from South Africa and other neighboring countries starting on Monday. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, joins us now to give us the update.
Welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

FRANCIS COLLINS: Glad to join you.

CORNISH: So you've been in touch with officials in South Africa. We now have the information from the WHO. What have you learned about this new variant?

COLLINS: Well, yeah, I've been on Zoom calls and phone calls all day trying to learn everything that we currently know. It's a troubling variant. It has more than 50 mutations, the largest number of differences from the original virus that we've seen so far. And that, of course, makes you worry that the things that we've been doing to fight this off might not work quite as well with omicron.

CORNISH: Meaning social distancing and masking...

COLLINS: By the way, a lot of people are looking up...

CORNISH: ...Or vaccines?

COLLINS: I'm sorry?

CORNISH: When you say that makes you worry, does that mean you have concerns about the efficacy of the current vaccines available?

COLLINS: That would be the concern, although, let me be clear, there is no data at the present time to indicate that the current vaccines would not work. So this is just looking at those mutations and going, boy, we'd better really check this out.

CORNISH: This is not the first variant. What have you learned from dealing with past variants that could be helpful here?

COLLINS: Very important question, Audie. What we have learned is that vaccines work really well against all the other variants - alpha, beta, delta. And it also is the case that getting boosted makes the vaccine work even better against those other variants. So message for people right now - if you haven't gotten boosted and you're six months out from Pfizer or Moderna or two months from J&J, this would be a really good time to sign up and take care of that in the next few days.

CORNISH: But why are there such red flags, then, for this latest variant?

COLLINS: Well, two things. One is that it seems to be spreading very rapidly in South Africa and other neighboring countries, which is a sign of something that maybe is particularly contagious. And the other is the fact that it has so many mutations, more than we've ever seen, which is, again, a red flag that it might be more difficult for our immune systems to recognize if we get exposed to it, even if we've seen the vaccine before.

CORNISH: Could the U.S. and other developed nations done more to get vaccines to parts of the world that had less access? And I ask this because the idea of vaccinations, which - was to prevent the kinds of mutations that could lead to more dangerous variants.

COLLINS: That's absolutely right. And we in the U.S. have done more than any other country to try to achieve that. We've already sent out more than 250 million doses and committed to more than a billion more; more than any other country. And we do need to do that just for self-interest, not to mention the fact that we are fortunate to have resources and we should be reaching out to all of our brothers and sisters all over the world.

CORNISH: But the U.S. is already on boosters while these countries - I think the vaccination rate in South Africa is in the sort of 35% range. I mean, is it better to be trying to prevent this kind of thing in other countries than to kind of keep dosing ourselves with vaccines?

COLLINS: Well, I talked to the folks in South Africa about this. They say at the present time, their problem is not access to vaccines. They have vaccines. They have the same problem we seem to have with people being hesitant to take them. And that is a terrible tragedy for our country and for theirs as well.

CORNISH: Speaking of which, in the U.S., COVID cases are up around 30%, at least compared to a month ago. I know you've been out promoting boosters, you've - as you've been doing here, singing the praises of vaccines and also vaccine mandates. But to really keep cases under control this holiday season and through the winter, where does the national strategy need to head from here?

COLLINS: Well, we need to do everything possible, Audie, to convince people who are still on the fence to roll up their sleeves if they haven't yet gotten immunized. And of course, mandates is one way that we're accomplishing that, although I think most of us wish we didn't have to do mandates when the evidence is so compelling. And booster wise, again, getting messages like this in front of people.

We're working, though, against a terrible onslaught of misinformation and, frankly, disinformation that's being spread by people with other agendas, which causes people to be confused and fearful in a situation where the data is actually really clear about what you should do. These vaccines are safe and effective, and the boosters really work.

CORNISH: We just have a minute left. What's your sense of what it would take to get to an endemic phase of this pandemic - right? - where the virus is still circulating but not disrupting everyday life?

COLLINS: Yeah. We'd need to see cases, hospitalizations and deaths drop way down from where they are right now. We're still losing a thousand people a day in the United States. That would mean getting immunization levels very much higher than they are and also practicing those other simple things in terms of mitigation, like mask-wearing indoors when you're around other unvaccinated people.

We have, of course, gotten to the point where a lot of people are tired of hearing all that, but the virus is not tired of us. And so we have to double down on that and keep these messages coming. We're all in this together.

CORNISH: That's Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.

Thank you for this update. Thank you for your expertise and time.

COLLINS: Thank you. It's nice to be with you.

(SOUNDBITE OF FRANZ FERDINAND SONG, "40'")

Statement by President Joe Biden on the Omicron COVID-19 Variant [The White House, 26 Nov 2021]

This morning I was briefed by my chief medical advisor, Dr. Tony Fauci, and the members of our COVID response team, about the Omicron variant, which is spreading through Southern Africa. As a precautionary measure until we have more information, I am ordering additional air travel restrictions from South Africa and seven other countries. These new restrictions will take effect on November 29. As we move forward, we will continue to be guided by what the science and my medical team advises.

For now, I have two important messages for the American people, and one for the world community.

First, for those Americans who are fully vaccinated against severe COVID illness – fortunately, for the vast majority of our adults — the best way to strengthen your protection is to get a booster shot, as soon as you are eligible. Boosters are approved for all adults over 18, six months past their vaccination and are available at 80,000 locations coast-to-coast. They are safe, free, and convenient. Get your booster shot now, so you can have this additional protection during the holiday season.

Second, for those not yet fully vaccinated: get vaccinated today. This includes both children and adults. America is leading the world in vaccinating children ages 5-11, and has been vaccinating teens for many months now – but we need more Americans in all age groups to get this life-saving protection. If you have not gotten vaccinated, or have not taken your children to get vaccinated, now is the time.

Finally, for the world community: the news about this new variant should make clearer than ever why this pandemic will not end until we have global vaccinations. The United States has already donated more vaccines to other countries than every other country combined. It is time for other countries to match America’s speed and generosity.

In addition, I call on the nations gathering next week for the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting to meet the U.S. challenge to waive intellectual property protections for COVID vaccines, so these vaccines can be manufactured globally. I endorsed this position in April; this news today reiterates the importance of moving on this quickly.
###

New Coronavirus News from 27 Nov 2021a

Covid News: Confirmed Omicron Cases in U.K., Germany and Italy [The New York Times, 27 Nov 2021]

Covid Live Updates: U.K., Germany and Italy Confirm Omicron Cases

Britain reimposed a mask mandate in stores and on public transportation. Chaos at a Dutch airport exemplified the scattershot response across Europe.

As more countries placed travel bans on southern Africa early Saturday for fear of a new and possibly more dangerous variant of the coronavirus, the passengers on two flights from South Africa found themselves caught in a pandemic nightmare.

After about 30 hours squeezed together in the planes, crammed buses and then in waiting rooms, 61 of the more than 500 passengers on those flights had tested positive and been quarantined. They were being checked for Omicron, named by the World Health Organization just on Friday as a “variant of concern,” its most serious category.

Everyone else, according to Stephanie Nolen, The New York Times’s global health reporter, who was on one of the planes, “has scattered to the world.”

The chaos in Amsterdam seemed emblematic of the varied, and often scattershot, responses to the virus across the world, with masking rules, national testing requirements and vaccine mandates differing from country to country and continent to continent. (KLM, the airline operating the flights, said that only some passengers had to show proof of a recent negative test, depending on vaccination status and the requirements of their final destination.)

Such gaps could open avenues for contagion, especially for a potentially threatening new variant.

“That number of people seems like a very high number to have this happen,” said Andrew Pekosz, an epidemiologist from Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“Unless there’s really tremendous amounts of spread of this virus locally that was not detected.”

The Omicron variant is likely to be found in some of those 61 passengers who tested positive, Dutch public health officials announced on Saturday. The sequencing is still being performed by the Dutch agency for disease control and prevention. It was unclear how many passengers may have tested positive for the variant.

Those who tested positive for the coronavirus at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Friday have been transferred to quarantine hotels. Those who tested negative could continue their journey or, if the Netherlands was their final destination, were told to quarantine at home.

The government is also telling thousands of people who have returned from southern Africa in the last few days to get tested, even if they don’t have symptoms.

There is still relatively little known about Omicron. It has mutations that scientists fear could make it more infectious and less susceptible to vaccines — though neither of these effects is yet to be established.

On Saturday, fear of Omicron arrived nonetheless, as officials in Britain reported two cases of the variant, and Germany and the Czech Republic investigated suspected cases.

The numbers of confirmed cases outside southern Africa remain small, but there are worries the virus could have spread more widely before scientists there discovered it.

“It would be irresponsible” not to be worried about the new variant, Roberto Speranza, the health minister of Italy, the first European Union nation to block flights from southern Africa, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper on Saturday. “It’s a new and worrying element.”

After the initial shock of the discovery of a case of the Omicron variant in Europe on Friday in Belgium, European leaders, already struggling with a surge in cases that has made it once again the epicenter of the pandemic, tried to strike a balance between increasing caution and avoiding panic. But the virus would not cooperate.

On Friday evening, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said on Twitter that she held “fruitful” conversations with the pharmaceutical companies and that they “explained their efforts to quickly and thoroughly understand the Omicron variant and adjust our strategies accordingly. Time is of the essence.”

The union acted with rare unity in response to the threat posed by the new variant, binding together to restrict travel to and from southern Africa.

Vivian Loonela, a spokeswoman for the commission, said Saturday that “member states agreed to introduce rapidly restrictions on all travel into the E.U. from seven countries in the southern Africa region — Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe.”

Mr. Speranza, Italy’s health minister, told Corriere della Sera that he considered it wise “to activate the emergency brake,” adding, the “European coordination on these decisions is fundamental.”

One of Mr. Speranza’s main criticisms during the first wave of the virus back in 2020 was that Italy was left alone, and that France and Britain and other countries did not act to ban flights from China as Italy did in January of that year.

He said the strategy of the government, to promote vaccinations through a strict health pass that was required to work and participate in much of society, would not change. The government’s message remained the same, vaccines — and now boosters — were the only way out of the pandemic.

Isabella Grullón Paz contributed reporting.
— Jason Horowitz and Claire Moses

Tracking the Coronavirus
TRANSCRIPT
Boris Johnson Reimposes U.K. Mask Mandate Over Omicron Cases
After two cases of the new Omicron coronavirus variant were confirmed in Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said masks would be required in stores and on public transportation and listed testing guidelines for travelers from abroad.

Wednesday, we received news of a new variant, the so-called Omicron variant. This variant is spreading around the world, with two cases so far identified here in the U.K. As always — I must stress this — as always with a new variant, there are many things that we just cannot know at this early stage, but our scientists are learning more hour by hour, and it does appear that Omicron spreads very rapidly and can be spread between people who are double vaccinated. But we now need to go further and implement a proportionate testing regime for arrivals from across the whole world. So we’re not going to stop people traveling — I want to stress that, we’re not going to stop people traveling — but we will require anyone who enters the U.K. to take a P.C.R. test by the end of the second day after their arrival and to self-isolate until they have a negative result. In addition to the measures we’re already taking to locate those who have been in countries of concern over the last 10 days, we will require all contacts of those who test positive with a suspected case of Omicron to self-isolate for 10 days, regardless of your vaccination status. We will also go further in asking all of you to help contain the spread of this variant by tightening up the rules on face coverings in shops and on public transport. We don’t yet exactly know how effective our vaccines will be against Omicron, but we have good reasons for believing they will provide at least some measure of protection. And if you’re boosted, your response is likely to be stronger. So it’s more vital than ever that people get their jabs and we get those boosters into arms as fast as possible. The measures that we’re taking today, including on our borders and on face masks, are temporary and precautionary, and we will review them in three weeks. At that point, we should have much greater information about the continuing effectiveness of our vaccines.

As the world scrambled to prevent the spread of the new Omicron coronavirus variant that was first detected in southern Africa, Britain’s Health Security Agency confirmed on Saturday that two cases of the variant had been recorded in the country.

In a news conference on Saturday evening, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that to curb the spread of the variant, face masks would be required in stores and on public transportation, a rule the country had ended in July.

“As always, I must stress this, with a new variant there are many things we just cannot know at this early stage,” Mr. Johnson said.

“It does appear that Omicron spreads very rapidly and can be spread between people who are double vaccinated,” he added. Although the science around Omicron is still new, it is a “very extensive mutation” of previous configurations of the virus that could reduce vaccine effectiveness, Mr. Johnson said.

The cases are said to be linked to travel in southern Africa, the British government confirmed in a statement. Sajid Javid, Britain’s health secretary, described the new cases as a “stark reminder” that the pandemic was not yet over.

“Thanks to our world-class genomic sequencing, we have been made aware of two U.K. cases of the Omicron variant,” Mr. Javid said. “We have moved rapidly, and the individuals are self-isolating while contact tracing is ongoing.”

TRANSCRIPT
Sajid Javid, the U.K. health secretary, said the individuals were self-isolating as sequencing, contact tracing and further tests were being carried out. The British government confirmed the two cases of the new Omicron coronavirus variant were linked to travel in southern Africa.

Late last night, I was contacted by the U.K. Health Security Agency. I was informed that they have detected two cases of this new variant, Omicron, in the United Kingdom — one in Chelmsford, the other in Nottingham. The two individuals concerned are self-isolating, alongside their whole household, whilst further tests and sequencing is carried out, and contact tracing. The two cases are linked. Now we’ve been always very clear that we won’t hesitate to take further action if that is what is required. And today, I can announce one thing that we are doing immediately is carrying out targeted testing and sequencing of positive cases in the two areas that are affected. And secondly, we are adding four more countries to the red list, from 4 a.m. on Sunday, and those are Angola, Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia. If anyone has traveled to these four countries or any of the other recently red listed countries in the last 10 days, then they must self-isolate and take PCR tests. This is a real reminder to us all that this pandemic is far from over. And if there’s one thing that everyone can be doing right now is, if they’re eligible, please take your vaccine. Whether it’s your first shot, your second shot or your booster jab, if you are eligible, please take your vaccine.

The country’s health agency is now carrying out targeted testing at several locations where infections could have been spread. Britain will also require travelers from abroad to get a PCR test within 48 hours of their arrival and require contacts of those who test positive with a suspected case of Omicron to self-isolate for 10 days, regardless of vaccination status.

“We don’t yet exactly know how effective our vaccines will be against Omicron, but we have good reasons for believing they will provide at least some measure of protection,” he said.

In addition to the six countries in southern Africa that were added to Britain’s travel ban list on Friday to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant, four other countries — Angola, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia — were also added. Being on the list requires travelers to quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days.
— Aina J. Khan and Isabella Grullón Paz

The highly mutated new coronavirus variant known as Omicron is present in Germany, according to the health ministry for the state of Bavaria, which confirmed that two people infected with the new variant returned from a trip to South Africa this week.

The two travelers, a married couple who arrived on a flight on Tuesday, tested positive for the coronavirus, Klaus Holetschek, the Bavarian health minister, said in a public television interview on Friday. Hours later, his ministry confirmed that rapid sequencing had determined the couple were infected with the new variant.

In addition to those two, at least one person returning from South Africa was suspected of being of infected with the Omicron variant in the state of Hesse, in central Germany.

The news prompted fresh concern at a time when Germany was already struggling to curb a brutal fourth wave of the pandemic that had produced tens of thousands of new daily infections — more than the country has had at any point in the pandemic. Hospitals across the country were already struggling to accommodate a surge in Covid patients.

Germany Coronavirus Cases
“We have to break the Delta wave together now to be able to have some breathing space,” said Oliver T. Keppler, the virologist in charge of sequencing the new cases in Bavaria.

Germany was one of several European countries with suspected or confirmed cases of the new variant. Belgium reported a case on Friday, in a traveler returning from outside southern Africa, and Italy said on Saturday that it had confirmed a case in a traveler who had arrived from Mozambique. Health officials in the Czech Republic said on Saturday that they were examining a suspected case in a person who spent time in Namibia, and Israel said it had confirmed one case and was testing seven others, according to the news agency Reuters. In the Austrian state of Tirol, one recently returned traveler is suspected of being infected with the variant, the public broadcaster ORF reported on Saturday night.

The full sequencing on the suspected case of Omicron in Hesse will be completed early next week, said Sandra Ciesek, director of the Institute of Medical Virology at the University Hospital of Frankfurt.

The German government restricted travel from South Africa on Friday. As of midnight on Saturday, it will be designated a high-risk “variant region,” which means airlines are only allowed to transport German residents to Germany. All those who arrive have to quarantine for 14 days, even if they are vaccinated.

Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting.

— Katrin Bennhold and Christopher F. Schuetze

Switzerland will vote on virus restrictions on Sunday.

GENEVA — With coronavirus infections soaring in Switzerland, voters will deliver a verdict on their government’s health strategy on Sunday, after weeks of rancorous debate that revealed a strong current of anger in the nation’s usually placid politics.

As has happened across Europe, new Covid-19 cases have climbed steadily in Switzerland since mid-October. In the week ending Nov. 21, they jumped more than 50 percent from the week before. And the continent was put on alert over the weekend with confirmed reports of the Omicron variant in several countries.

Switzerland Coronavirus Cases

Voters will decide whether to keep a law that requires people to show a certificate, or “green pass,” as proof of vaccination or recovery from Covid to get into restaurants, museums and other public spaces. The law also opened up billions of dollars of financial support for businesses struggling to survive the pandemic.

Health Minister Alain Berset took pains this week to say the government was not planning any more nationwide restrictions, let alone the sort of lockdown that Austria imposed this week. He cited the lack of pressure on Swiss hospitals: Official figures show that Covid patients occupy less than a quarter of I.C.U. beds and account for only about 4 percent of total hospital occupancy.

But many Swiss suspect that a tightening of controls may be unavoidable and could come as soon as Sunday’s vote is out of the way.

“We are only two weeks behind Austria, and in two weeks’ time we could be in the same situation Austria is in today,” said Pascal Sciarini, a political scientist at the University of Geneva.

In a letter reported in Swiss newspapers this week, President Guy Parmelin described the situation as “critical” and urged officials in Switzerland’s cantons, or provinces, to increase hospital capacity and mobilize specialists in preparation for a sudden deterioration in conditions.

Mr. Parmelin said the government was calling for a cantonal response partly out of concern that nationwide measures would gain lukewarm compliance in areas with low infection rates and deepen the divide between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Unusually aggressive rhetoric and vitriol ahead of Sunday’s vote underscored those strains.

The vote is the second in four months called by a coalition of groups from across the political spectrum, but with support from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party and a strong base in the country’s mountainous, rural heartland.

“The worst thing is the ‘green pass,’ which divides the society and leads to an inhuman discrimination against two million Swiss people” who are unvaccinated, said Siegfried Hettegger, one of the managers of the campaign, which he said was not against vaccination.
Politicians who have spoken in favor of the law in televised debates have faced death threats and abuse. Campaigners against the law, including Mr. Hettegger, say opponents have destroyed their posters and campaign leaflets, hacked their websites and taken other steps to stop them from mobilizing popular support.

The first vote, held in June, delivered a 60 percent majority in favor of the law, and the latest polls suggest a similar outcome on Sunday. But the opposition campaign won a majority in eight of Switzerland’s 26 cantons in that first vote.

Any increase in the 40 percent share of the national vote the campaign achieved last time would be “a huge victory,” Mr. Hettegger said.
— Nick Cumming-Bruce

JOHANNESBURG — As the United States and European countries close their borders over fears over the recently detected coronavirus variant, many South Africans say they feel as if they are being “punished” for alerting global health authorities.

Hours after South African scientists announced the existence of a new variant that they said displayed “a big jump in evolution,” Britain banned travelers from southern African nations. Other European nations and the United States quickly followed suit.

“I do apologize that people took a very radical decision,” said Tulio de Oliveira, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform and the scientist who announced the new variant on Thursday.

Fresh from a virtual meeting with global health leaders, including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser on the coronavirus, Mr. Oliveira told journalists he believed that international solidarity would be in favor of South Africa’s decision to publicize its findings.

The variant, named Omicron by the World Health Organization, was first detected in South Africa and in neighboring Botswana. The government in Botswana announced that four initial cases were all foreign diplomats who had since left, and that contact tracing was continuing.
Cases have also now been spotted in Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel, in travelers sometimes returning from countries other than South Africa or Botswana, and suspected cases are being investigated in Germany and the Czech Republic.

The economies of South Africa and Botswana are reliant on tourists from the United States, Europe and China. South Africa’s tourism minister, Lindiwe Sisulu, described the temporary travel bans as “devastating.” Earlier this year, South African diplomats and scientists lobbied the British government to lift a previous ban that had already crippled tourism.

“We had been on the British red list and we worked our way out of it and with no notification we find ourselves back on the red list,” Ms. Sisulu told a national television station.

“Perhaps our scientists’ ability to trace some of these variants has been our biggest weakness,” Ms. Sisulu said. “We’re finding ourselves punished for the work that we do.”

Health officials in Africa suggested that increased screening at points of entry, or even longer quarantine periods, would have been a better alternative.

“This will just discourage different countries for sharing information which might be very important for global public health,” said Thierno Balde, incident manager for the Covid-19 emergency response for the World Health Organization’s regional office in Africa.

South Africa’s transparency was criticized by some local officials and businesspeople. Geordin Hill-Lewis, the mayor of Cape Town, said South African officials should have consulted their “travel partners” before making the announcement.

In January 2020, before global travel restrictions over the coronavirus pandemic, 93,315 international tourists arrived at Cape Town International airport, according to Statistics South Africa. By May 2021, that number had dropped to 4,821.

After the travel restrictions imposed after the highly transmissible Delta variant, Mr. Hill-Lewis said he believed that South African authorities should have expected the restrictions.

“That should have been foreseen and some heavy diplomacy put into action,” he said.

But Craig Lucke, a Cape Town-based guide who operates tours in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa called the countries’ actions “a total shocker.”
— Lynsey Chutel

More countries restrict travel from southern Africa.

As Saturday dawned around the world, more countries were introducing restrictions on travelers from southern Africa over concerns about the emerging Omicron coronavirus variant.

Australia announced on Saturday that it had closed its borders to noncitizens from nine southern African countries — South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, the Seychelles, Malawi and Mozambique — and that flights from there would be immediately suspended for 14 days. Australian citizens who arrive from those countries will need to quarantine in a hotel for two weeks, and anyone who has already arrived in the last two weeks must immediately isolate, officials said.

No cases of the Omicron variant have been recorded yet in Australia, although 20 people who recently arrived from South Africa are isolating in a quarantine camp, the country’s health minister, Greg Hunt, said at a news conference on Saturday. One person out of the 20 has tested positive for the virus and the case is being studied.

Thailand, Oman, Morocco and Sri Lanka announced similar restrictions on Saturday. Japan also said that it would tighten border controls for arrivals from three more countries — Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia — a day after announcing similar measures for South Africa and six other nations.

The World Trade Organization said it had indefinitely postponed its Ministerial Conference, which had been scheduled to start on Tuesday in Geneva, because newly imposed travel restrictions in Switzerland and other European countries would have prevented many ministers from attending. The conference is the W.T.O.’s highest rule-making body.

The government of Canada said late Friday that it would bar foreign nationals who had been in seven of the countries within two weeks of their planned arrival in Canada. Canadian citizens and permanent residents who have been in the region within two weeks of coming home can still return but will face enhanced testing and quarantine protocols, regardless of their vaccination status.

The Omicron variant had not been detected in Canada as of Friday night. The government described its new restrictions as a precautionary step and cited similar actions in Britain, the European Union and the United States.

Saudi Arabia has also suspended flights to and from seven southern African countries, the country’s official news agency reported on Friday. And Ciro Nogueira, the chief of staff to President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, said on Twitter that the country would halt its air traffic with six African countries on Monday.

Russia said in a statement published online on Friday that it would restrict entry starting Sunday for foreign citizens from eight southern African countries and in Hong Kong, which reported two cases of the variant on Friday. The restrictions also apply to foreign citizens who have traveled in those territories within the last 10 days.

“This variant has not yet been found on the territory of Russia,” the statement said. The restrictions will come into effect from midnight.

The W.H.O. has said that the Omicron variant carries a number of genetic mutations that may allow it to spread quickly, perhaps even among the vaccinated.

The speed at which travel restrictions have been imposed on southern African nations in recent days demonstrates how, two years into the pandemic, many policymakers would now rather risk overreacting to a new threat than underreacting.

“These new measures are being put in place out of an abundance of caution,” Jean-Yves Duclos, Canada’s health minister, said in a statement. “We will continue to do what is necessary to protect the health of Canadians.”

Todd Gregory contributed reporting.
— Mike Ives, John Yoon, Yan Zhuang and Aina J. Khan

How did Omicron get its name?
Markets plunged on Friday, hope of taming the coronavirus dimmed and a new term entered the pandemic lexicon: Omicron.

The Covid-19 variant that emerged in South Africa was named after the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet.

The naming system, announced by the World Health Organization in May, makes public communication about variants easier and less confusing, the agency and experts said.

For example, the variant that emerged in India is not popularly known as B.1.617.2. Rather, it is known as Delta, the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet.

There are now seven “variants of interest” or “variants of concern,” and they each have a Greek letter, according to a W.H.O. tracking page.
— Vimal Patel

The Omicron variant has worrisome mutations, but scientists say vaccines seem likely to work against it.

Scientific experts at the World Health Organization warned on Friday that a new coronavirus variant discovered in southern Africa was a “variant of concern,” the most serious category the agency uses for such tracking.

The designation, announced after an emergency meeting of the health body, is reserved for dangerous variants that may spread quickly, cause severe disease or decrease the effectiveness of vaccines or treatments. The last coronavirus variant to receive this label was Delta, which took off this summer and now accounts for virtually all Covid cases in the United States.

The W.H.O. said the new version, named Omicron, carries a number of genetic mutations that may allow it to spread quickly, perhaps even among the vaccinated.

Independent scientists agreed that Omicron warranted urgent attention, but also pointed out that it would take more research to determine the extent of the threat. Although some variants of concern, like Delta, have lived up to initial worries, others have had a limited impact.

William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and other researchers said that vaccines will most likely protect against Omicron, but further studies are needed to determine how much of the shots’ effectiveness may be reduced.

As the coronavirus replicates inside people, new mutations constantly arise. Most provide the virus with no new advantage. When worrisome mutations do emerge, the World Health Organization uses Greek letters to name the variants. The first “variant of concern,” Alpha, appeared in Britain in late 2020, soon followed by Beta in South Africa.

Omicron first came to light in Botswana, where researchers at the Botswana Harvard H.I.V. Reference Laboratory in Gaborone sequenced the genes of coronaviruses from positive test samples. They found some samples sharing about 50 mutations not found in such a combination before. So far, six people have tested positive for Omicron in Botswana, according to an international database of variants.

Around the same time, researchers in South Africa stumbled across Omicron in a cluster of cases in the province of Gauteng. As of Friday, they have listed 58 Omicron samples on the variant database. But at a news conference on Thursday, Tulio de Oliveira, the director of the Centre for Epidemic Response & Innovation in South Africa, said that “close to two or three hundred” genetic sequences of Omicron cases would be released in the next few days.
— Carl Zimmer

President Biden will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other African countries to try to contain a troubling new variant of the coronavirus, senior administration officials said on Friday, though they said it would be impossible to prevent it from entering the United States.

Starting on Monday, the administration will prohibit travelers from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi from coming to the United States, the officials said.

The travel ban will not apply to American citizens or lawful permanent residents, officials said. But they will need to show a negative coronavirus test before coming to the United States.

Mr. Biden made the decision after he was briefed by advisers including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who said in an interview Friday that the variant appeared to be spreading rapidly and that he and other health officials in the United States were consulting with South African scientists. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in a statement late Friday that no cases of the new variant had been identified in the United States.

The White House announced the decision after the World Health Organization said the newly detected version of the virus, labeled Omicron, was “a variant of concern,” a category for dangerous variants that may spread quickly, cause severe disease or decrease the effectiveness of vaccines or treatments.

Tracking Omicron and Other Coronavirus Variants

“I’ve decided that we’re going to be cautious,” Mr. Biden told reporters in Nantucket. “We don’t know a lot about the variant except that it is a great concern and seems to spread rapidly.”
By imposing the travel restrictions, the administration will not stop the virus from coming to the United States. But it can give health officials and pharmaceutical companies time to determine whether the current vaccines work against the new variant — and if not, to create new vaccines that do.

“It’s going to buy us some time,” Dr. Fauci said. “It’s not going to be possible to keep this infection out of the country. The question is: Can you slow it down?”

Dr. Fauci said the new variant has about 30 mutations, and roughly 10 of them are on a part of the virus that is associated with transmissibility and immune protection. That suggests the virus may be more transmissible and may escape the current vaccines “to an extent yet to be determined.”

He said there had been some breakthrough infections among those who had recovered from the Delta variant, and among those who were vaccinated.

But at the same time, he said, scientists do not know the severity of the infections caused by the new variant. It is entirely possible that it spreads more quickly but causes less severe disease.

“You don’t want to say don’t worry, and you don’t want to say you’ve got to worry yourself sick, because we’re gathering information rapidly,” he said, adding, “Even though the numbers are still small, the doubling time is pretty rapid and the slope of the increase is really rather sharp.”
Biden administration officials said they were continuing to work with health officials in other countries to learn more about the variant.

“Restricting travel is going to slow its coming, not stop it from coming,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, chair of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania and an adviser to the president during his transition. “The fact that it’s coming here is inevitable. The environment in which it comes may not be inevitable. We can alter the environment.”

Mr. Biden said on Friday that the rise of the Omicron variant was another reason for vaccinated Americans to get boosters and unvaccinated Americans to get inoculated — a point Dr. Fauci echoed. And Mr. Biden said the development should push the international community to donate more vaccines to nations suffering from a lack of access or poor vaccination rates.

Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota who also advised Mr. Biden during his transition, said the administration had little choice on implementing the travel ban.

But Dr. Osterholm said it could take time before scientists know if the current vaccines are effective against the variant, and how transmissible it is. One way to figure that out is through laboratory studies, which will take several weeks, he said. Another way is to follow breakthrough cases in people who are already vaccinated, which could take months.

— Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Sheryl Gay Stolberg

Medical students helping to fight Covid get a holiday gift.

For 956 students at one of the largest historically Black medical colleges, an unexpected gift of gratitude arrived in their bank accounts just in time for Thanksgiving.

The students, from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, have been pivotal in helping their city keep coronavirus testing sites staffed for the last 19 months — and, more recently, in helping run vaccination clinics.

That work inspired Dr. James Hildreth, Meharry’s president, to send each student $10,000 on Wednesday.

“I’m thankful for you students, and the future of health care, public health and research that is entrusted to you,” he said in a video message to them. “That future looks bright.”

The money comes from the $40 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds earmarked for colleges and universities. Schools are required to spend at least half on emergency grants to students.

Some historically Black colleges and universities have used the funds to ease student debt. Dr. Hildreth did not tell Meharry students how to spend the cash infusion, though he did offer advice.

“We felt that there was no better way to begin distributing these funds than by giving to our students who will soon give so much to our world,” he said in the video. He added, “The ten thousand dollars is yours to manage, but I would be remiss if I didn’t strongly advise you this Thanksgiving to be good stewards of what you’ve been given. I know Black Friday shopping is tempting, but you’d be well advised to use the funds to pay expenses related to your education and training.”

The pandemic has been a difficult time for Meharry students, requiring virtual classes, shortened clinical rotations and delayed licensing exams, said Dwight Johnson II, a fourth-year student from Brownsville, Tenn., who is his class chaplain.

“Many of us had family members and friends that passed away,” Mr. Johnson said. “Also, prior to the release of vaccinations, going into hospitals each day knowing that you may be exposed to Covid and have to be taken out of your rotations for quarantine was an extremely stressful experience.”

The announcement came as Mr. Johnson, 27, was selling his couch for $50, so he said he was “overjoyed when I got the news.”

“I plan on using the money to alleviate some of my debt, study resources for my upcoming licensing exam, and for my honeymoon, as I’ll be getting married in May,” he said. “My fiancée is also a fourth-year medical student at Meharry, so this gift completely changed how we’ll be able to begin our lives together.”

Mr. Johnson is applying for a gynecological residency position, and he plans to work in an underserved community to help reduce disparities in maternal mortality. The work, he said, is in the spirit of his great-grandfather, who started funeral and insurance businesses to address the denial of basic services to Black citizens during the Jim Crow era.

“I’ve also spoken to some other classmates, and we are interested in organizing some way to give back to the various workers at Meharry in time for Christmas,” he said. “We understand the importance of paying it forward and are grateful to be in a position to help others.”
— Adeel Hassan

As global concern rose on Friday about a new coronavirus variant, Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency in New York, giving her the power to order hospitals to limit nonessential procedures to boost capacity in facilities.

The new variant, called Omicron, has officially been named a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization. The designation means that the variant has mutations that might make it more contagious or more virulent, or make vaccines and other preventive measures less effective — though none of those effects has yet been established.

The new measures in New York — which saw thousands of deaths from Covid-19 in 2020 — will take effect on Dec. 3, and are a far cry from the strict, society-wide restrictions which accompanied the early stages of the pandemic.

Still, the quick action by Gov. Hochul suggests the high level of concern not just about rising numbers of new cases across the state in recent weeks, but about the Omicron variant, which has already prompted several countries, including the United States, to restrict travelers from southern Africa.

“We continue to see warning signs of spikes this upcoming winter, and while the new Omicron variant has yet to be detected in New York State, it’s coming,” Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, said in a statement, adding that vaccination remained a critical tool in fighting the virus.

Rates of positive tests in New York have crept up recently, even as vaccination rates have improved, with some counties recording positivity rates of more than 10 percent. In the two weeks before Thanksgiving Day, the daily average of new cases reported in New York rose 37 percent, to 6,666, according to a New York Times database. More than 56,000 people have died of the disease in New York.
— Jesse McKinley

The Omicron Variant: We Still Know Almost Nothing [The Atlantic, 27 Nov 2021]

By Katherine J. Wu

Here’s everything we do.

As fall dips into winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the coronavirus has served up the holiday gift that no one, absolutely no one, asked for: a new variant of concern, dubbed Omicron by the World Health Organization on Friday.

Omicron, also known as B.1.1.529, was first detected in Botswana and South Africa earlier this month, and very little is known about it so far. But the variant is moving fast. South Africa, the country that initially flagged Omicron to WHO this week, has experienced a surge of new cases—some reportedly in people who were previously infected or vaccinated—and the virus has already spilled across international borders into places such as Hong Kong, Belgium, Israel, and the United Kingdom. Several nations are now selectively shutting down travel to impede further spread. For instance, on Monday, the United States will start restricting travel from Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Malawi.

It’s a lot of news to process, and it comes without a lot of baseline knowledge about the virus itself. Scientists around the world are still scrambling to gather intel on three essential metrics: how quickly the variant spreads; if it’s capable of causing more serious disease; and whether it might be able to circumvent the immune protection left behind by past SARS-CoV-2 infections or COVID-19 vaccines, or evade immune-focused treatments such as monoclonal antibodies.

All are risks because of the sheer number of mutations Omicron appears to have picked up: More than 30 of them are in SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein, the multi-tool the virus uses to crack its way into human cells—and the snippet of the pathogen that’s the central focus of nearly all of the world’s COVID-19 vaccines. Alterations like these have been spotted in other troublesome variants, including Alpha and Delta, both of which used their super-speedster properties to blaze across the globe. (Omicron is only a distant cousin of both, not a direct descendant.) If—if—Omicron moves even faster than its predecessors, we could be in for another serious pandemic gut punch.

But it’s way too early to know if that’ll be the case. What’s known so far absolutely warrants attention—not panic. Viruses mutate; they always do. Not all variants of concern turn out to be,
well, all that concerning; many end up being mere blips in the pandemic timeline. As Omicron knocks up against its viral competitors, it may struggle to gain a toehold; it could yet be quelled through a combination of vaccines and infection-prevention measures such as masks and distancing. Vaccine makers have already announced plans to test their shots’ effectiveness against the new variant—with data to emerge in the coming weeks—and explore new dosing strategies that might help tamp down its spread. Omicron might be set up for some success, but a lot of its future also depends on us.

To help put Omicron in perspective, I caught up with Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, an infectious-disease physician, virologist, and global-health expert at Emory University. Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Katherine J. Wu: Why don’t we yet know for sure how worried we need to be about Omicron?

Boghuma Kabisen Titanji: What we do know about the variant is this: Some of its spike-protein mutations have been seen in other variants and other lineages described earlier on in the pandemic, and have been associated with increased transmissibility and the ability of the virus to evade the immune response. What we don’t know, and what is really hard to predict, is what the combination of mutations will do together. This particular variant now appears to be outcompeting other circulating variants in South Africa—there have been these clusters of cases. That is actually what led to this variant being identified in the surveillance systems that they have in place there. That raises the concern that the variant is more transmissible or may be escaping the effects of the immune response induced by vaccines or infection from earlier strains. But we really don’t know that for sure yet.

The disconnect is this: The surveillance systems have worked exactly in the way they are designed to. It makes us know what to look out for. However, when these systems pick up a signal, we don’t immediately get the epidemiologic data we need to know all of the impacts a new variant can have. That takes time. Right now, we have a limited number of [viral genomic] sequences, and a limited number of cases. Now the alert is out. People will start looking for this new variant, not only in the countries that initially reported on this, but now worldwide. There’s now a search to make sure this variant is well-characterized. That’s when we will gain a better understanding of whether it’s causing more severe disease, how much it is escaping immunity, and how transmissible it is.

It’s important to keep in mind that other variants of concern have emerged before, including immune-evasive variants like Beta, which was first identified in South Africa, but eventually petered out.

Wu: Could we have seen the arrival of Omicron coming?
Titanji: Viruses are going to evolve regardless of what we do. There are things we can do to slow that down: barrier measures [such as masking], vaccinating. And there are things that we can do that can maybe speed up or aid the evolution of the virus. One is if we’re not doing what we need to do to prevent spread of the virus within the population.

Every time a virus spreads, it gets another opportunity to infect a new host, and it gets another opportunity to evolve and change and adapt.

All of this means that it is worth having a conversation about whether the slow rollout of vaccines globally has had an impact. In certain parts of the world, not enough people have been given a measure of protection to allow them to be able to withstand infection, and to slow down transmission of the virus. Are we actually giving the virus an opportunity to spread unrestricted in certain places and drive its evolutionary trend? It’s basically exposing ourselves to the emergence of more variants. So this was predictable. If the virus has the opportunity to spread unchecked in the population, then we’re giving it multiple ways in which to evolve and adapt.

If we had ensured that everyone had equal access to vaccination and really pushed the agenda on getting global vaccination to a high level, then maybe we could have possibly delayed the emergence of new variants, such as the ones that we’re witnessing.

Wu: We’re still dealing with Delta, a previous variant of concern. Where do we go from here?
Titanji: A good place to start is reminding people that we are definitely not where we were two years ago, when SARS-CoV-2 emerged. We now have a better understanding of how the virus is transmitted from person to person. We have antivirals that are coming down the pike. We have a better understanding of how to manage and treat cases of people who do get infected. We have vaccines and incredible mRNA technology that allows us to adapt quickly to a changing virus, and we will have second-generation vaccines. It’s definitely not back to square one.

Secondly, this does not mean that the vaccines that people have are now completely useless—the doses they have received are not null and void. We have not yet seen a variant of concern emerge that has been able to completely escape the effect of vaccines. The immunity from the vaccines may be less protective, which may translate into more post-vaccine infections from a new variant, if it takes off. But that is yet to be determined.

We also know that a booster dose really does boost the antibody response. A new variant could dent the [protection offered by the immune system], but that usually happens in degrees. There is still going to be immune responsiveness from previous immunizations, and infections from ancestral versions of the virus. It may simply mean that you need more of those antibodies to be able to neutralize that new variant of concern. We also have T cells, which play a role and may not be as impacted by the variant.

This variant could not have chosen a worse time to emerge. We’re in flu season. This is a time when respiratory viruses tend to spread quite efficiently. And we are in the holiday season, and there’s a lot of traveling, and a lot of people getting together with family. But it’s certainly not the time for people to let their guard down, or relax on nonpharmaceutical interventions.
People have to be mindful of wearing their mask when they’re out in public, or in crowded areas with people whose vaccination status they may not know. People have to be mindful of getting tested when they feel unwell, and isolating appropriately and doing all of those things that we have learned how to do over the course of the past two years, and that we know are effective in mitigating the spread of virus. The same measures will still work while we figure out just what this new variant means for us. Get your boosters. We’ll figure it out.

Wu: Several countries instituted travel bans this week, many of them primarily focused on African countries, where surveillance systems detected Omicron not long ago. How big of an impact might that make?
Titanji: Historically, there is a lot of evidence that by the time a travel ban is instituted, the virus has already gone … and potentially well beyond the borders of the countries that [the ban is] restricting travel from. Instituting travel bans as a knee-jerk reaction can send the wrong message to countries that are contributing to the global effort of virus surveillance. We could end up disincentivizing countries from reporting because they fear retaliation. There are other measures that could be taken to ensure that travel is safe. For example, to get an international flight, you have to be fully vaccinated as a requirement for most countries, or show proof of negative tests.

We will be better served if we put the emphasis on the countries that have seen the highest number of cases of this new emerging variant: providing them with the resources to actually contain the variant, and making sure that they have the resources for testing, for isolating cases, for doing the science that we need to better understand Omicron.

Wu: Some countries are already deep into their rollout of booster shots, and have, in recent months, lifted many restrictions; others are still barely making a dent in administering first doses. Regardless of where we go with Omicron, what does this say about our approach to COVID-19 as a global society?

Titanji: What this reiterates is that the world is so interconnected. We are in a global pandemic, and we cannot address this fully if we only have regional solutions. The solutions really have to be with a global mindset. And that global mindset means that the resources we have—vaccination, testing, access to therapeutics, and also the support to carry out appropriate surveillance—need to be equally accessible and equitably distributed in all parts of the world.

We can’t leave people behind. The virus will catch up with us regardless of where you are, regardless of what country you’re located in. You may be fully vaccinated, you may have had your booster, but you’re not that disconnected from the person who lives in a country where only 2 percent of the population is vaccinated, and who doesn’t have access to any of the treatments. We need to have less of an inward-looking focus. Because otherwise we’re just going to prolong how long we stay in this pandemic.

New Coronavirus News from 28 Nov 2021

U.S. Governors Respond to Omicron Variant [The New York Times, 28 Nov 2021]

By Melina Delkic and Giulia Heyward

Governors urge caution in the United States on the Omicron variant.

Governors across the United States tried to reassure Americans on Sunday that their administrations were closely monitoring the impact of a new coronavirus variant that has alarmed scientists.

Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut issued a statement on Sunday reminding his constituents to remain vigilant even though the new variant, known as Omicron, had yet to be detected in the United States.

“Given the number of countries where Omicron has already been detected, it may already be present in the U.S.,” he said in the statement.

Other state leaders took the same tone, urging caution as well as highlighting the measures they had already put in place earlier in the pandemic. Mr. Lamont pointed to the network of labs sequencing genomes in his state and reminded residents to wear masks in indoor public spaces.

Next door in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency on Friday. Under her executive order, all state agencies are authorized “to take appropriate action to assist local governments and individuals” in containing and responding to the coronavirus. Although the measures are a far cry from early pandemic rules, they were the nation’s first attempt to accelerate preparation for the arrival of the Omicron variant.

“We continue to see warning signs of spikes this upcoming winter, and while the new Omicron variant has yet to be detected in New York State, it’s coming,” Ms. Hochul said in a release.
Coronavirus cases in the United States by region

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said on Twitter on Sunday that the state was monitoring the new variant. He did not announce any new measures but said that the coronavirus vaccine and booster shot were essential.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health echoed that message and said in a statement, “More studies are needed to determine whether the Omicron variant is more contagious, more deadly or resistant to vaccine and treatments than other Covid-19 strains.” The department added that people in Los Angeles should adhere to existing mask requirements.

“While we are still learning much about Omicron, we know enough about Covid to take steps now that can reduce transmission as we prepare to better understand the additional strategies that may needed to mitigate this new variant of concerns,” the statement said.

Health leaders in the United States have said that it is all but inevitable that the variant will reach the country and called this a time for caution but not panic.

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to Know

Card 1 of 4
The Omicron variant. The latest variant was identified on Nov. 25 by scientists in South Africa.
As experts race to learn more, it’s still unclear if the variant leads to severe illness and how effective vaccines will be against it. Use our tracker to see where Omicron has been detected.
Travel restrictions and lockdowns. As more Omicron cases emerge globally, countries are responding in varied ways. Japan joined Israel and Morocco in barring all foreign travelers, and Australia delayed reopening its borders for two weeks. Here’s a list of where U.S. citizens can travel right now.

What officials are saying. President Biden sought to reassure the U.S. on Monday, telling Americans that the variant is “a cause for concern, not a cause for panic.” W.H.O. officials warned that the global risk posed by Omicron was “very high”, and the C.D.C said all adults “should” get booster shots.

Economic impact. After stocks dropped heavily following the initial news of Omicron’s discovery, global markets appeared to steady on Monday. Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, will tell lawmakers on Tuesday that Omicron creates more inflation uncertainty.

“We’re going to get better information about this,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said on the CNN program “State of the Union.” “But there’s no reason to panic. But it is a great reason to go get boosted.”

Some leaders sought to reassure residents. Gov. Dan McKee of Rhode Island said that its health department was not aware of any cases in the state linked to the variant, although he said that the state would continue to be on the lookout.

“The best way to keep RI safe: Get vaccinated. Get your booster,” he said on Twitter.
On Sunday, his office issued a statement saying that the state’s health laboratories already perform genomic surveillance on samples, “which would identify the Omicron variant.”

Two governors of more conservative states addressed concerns about the variant, too, but maintained their position that vaccine mandates were off the table for now.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas said on “State of the Union” that while a new variant “is a great concern,” encouraging vaccinations would work better than forcing them.

Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi made similar statements on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We’re certainly monitoring this new variant,” he said. “We don’t have all the data that we need to make decisions at this time.”

World Omicron Fight Hindered by Fragmented Response [The New York Times, 28 Nov 2021]

By Jason Horowitz

Almost two years into the pandemic, finger-pointing, lack of coordination, sparse information and fear are once again influencing policy.

ROME — In a wrenchingly familiar cycle of tracking first cases, pointing fingers and banning travel, nations worldwide reacted Monday to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in the piecemeal fashion that has defined — and hobbled — the pandemic response all along.

As here-we-go-again fear and resignation gripped much of the world, the World Health Organization warned that the risk posed by the heavily mutated variant was “very high.” But operating once again in a vacuum of evidence, governments chose approaches that differed between continents, between neighboring countries, and even between cities within those countries.

Little is known about Omicron beyond its large number of mutations; it will be weeks, at least, before scientists can say with confidence whether it is more contagious — early evidence suggests it is — whether it causes more serious illness, and how it responds to vaccines.

In China, which had been increasingly alone in sealing itself off as it sought to eradicate the virus, a newspaper controlled by the Communist Party gloated about democracies that are now following suit as Japan, Australia and other countries gave up flirting with a return to normalcy and slammed their borders shut to the world. The West, it said, had hoarded vaccines at the expense of poorer regions, and was now paying a price for its selfishness.

In the United States, federal officials called Monday on vaccinated people to get booster shots.
President Biden sought to reassure Americans, saying that the new variant is “a cause for concern, not a cause for panic” and that his administration was already working with vaccine manufacturers to modify vaccines, should that prove necessary.

“We’re throwing everything we have at this virus, tracking it from every angle,” the president said in an appearance at the White House.

In southern Africa, where scientists first identified Omicron amid a largely unvaccinated population, leaders deplored the travel bans as ruinous and counterproductive to tracking the virus, saying they could discourage transparency about outbreaks. African officials also noted that because of the inequity in distribution of vaccines, the continent faces this latest variant with little to no protection.

But with vaccine deliveries to Africa becoming more reliable, some states looked to a vaccine mandate to curb the spread of the coronavirus. On Sunday, Ghana’s government announced that government employees, health care workers and staff and students at most schools must be vaccinated by Jan. 22.

Europe which has acted in unusual concert in barring travel from southern Africa, is speeding up booster shots in the hope that they will work against Omicron, and adjusting or reconsidering a hodgepodge of social-distancing measures, even in restriction-resistant countries such as Britain.

“The lack of a consistent and coherent global approach has resulted in a splintered and disjointed response, breeding misunderstanding, misinformation and mistrust,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization director.

The W.H.O. convened a three-day special session to discuss a treaty that would ensure prompt sharing of data and technology and equitable access to vaccines. The European Union has pushed for the agreement to be legally binding, but the United States has balked.

The very proposal underlined that two years into a devastating pandemic that has killed millions, devastated national economies and robbed many of the world’s children of nearly two years of formative experiences, there is still no global plan for getting out of it.

As the largely vaccinated West clings to initial reports that Omicron may cause milder illness and may be susceptible to vaccines, entire swaths of Africa remain essentially unvaccinated.
Some nations, like South Africa, have sufficient doses but have struggled to distribute them. Others lack the freezers, logistical infrastructure and medical personnel to inoculate their populations.

That has given the virus plenty of time and bodies in which to multiply and mutate.

The travel bans are intended to buy time as scientists determine whether the mutations in new variant will allow it to dodge existing vaccines. But they also seemed to suggest that core lessons from the early phase of the pandemic must be learned again: An infection discovered somewhere is likely everywhere — or may be soon enough — and a single case detected means many more undetected.

On Monday, Portugal reported 13 Omicron cases — all tied to a single soccer team — and Scotland reported six, while the numbers in South Africa continued to soar.

Experts warned that the variant will reach every part of the world, if it hasn’t already.

The leaders of the world’s top powers insisted that they understood this, but their assurances also had a strong whiff of geopolitics.

President Xi Jinping of China offered one billion doses of Covid vaccine to Africa, on top of nearly 200 million that Beijing has already shipped to the continent, during an address to a conference in Senegal by video link.

The Global Times, a Chinese tabloid controlled by the Communist Party, boasted of China’s success in thwarting virus transmission, and said the West was now paying the price for its selfish policies. “Western countries control most of the resources needed to fight the Covid-19 pandemic,” it wrote. “But they have failed to curb the spread of the virus and have exposed more and more developing countries to the virus.”

Mr. Biden said the United States had sent more free vaccines abroad than all other countries in the world combined. “Now we need the rest of the world to step up as well,” he said.

European health ministers seemed to agree.

“The identification of the Omicron variant in the southern part of Africa confirms the urgency to do more to vaccinate the population of the most fragile countries,” Italy’s health minister, Roberto Speranza, said at a virtual meeting of health ministers representing seven of the world’s wealthiest large democracies.

He called on those countries to help administer vaccines. “It is not enough to donate doses,” Mr. Speranza said.

Within a few days of seeing evidence of a new variant, South African scientists, who run the continent’s most advanced genomic sequencing labs, had identified it. Last Wednesday, they made their findings public.

After other parts of the world, including the United States and the European Union, responded with travel bans on southern Africa, South African officials protested that their country was being punished for its speed and transparency.

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to Know

Card 1 of 4
The Omicron variant. The latest variant was identified on Nov. 25 by scientists in South Africa.
As experts race to learn more, it’s still unclear if the variant leads to severe illness and how effective vaccines will be against it. Use our tracker to see where Omicron has been detected.

Travel restrictions and lockdowns. As more Omicron cases emerge globally, countries are responding in varied ways. Japan joined Israel and Morocco in barring all foreign travelers, and Australia delayed reopening its borders for two weeks. Here’s a list of where U.S. citizens can travel right now.

What officials are saying. President Biden sought to reassure the U.S. on Monday, telling Americans that the variant is “a cause for concern, not a cause for panic.” W.H.O. officials warned that the global risk posed by Omicron was “very high”, and the C.D.C said all adults “should” get booster shots.

Economic impact. After stocks dropped heavily following the initial news of Omicron’s discovery, global markets appeared to steady on Monday. Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, will tell lawmakers on Tuesday that Omicron creates more inflation uncertainty.

Responses to the coronavirus have been as varied as the nations that are threatened by it.

Israel, the first nation to block travel in response to Omicron, granted its intelligence service temporary permission to monitor the phone data of people with confirmed cases of the variant.

In Italy, which has kept infections low with some of the most stringent rules in Europe, the country’s conference of mayors urged the government to impose a national outdoor mask mandate from Dec. 6 until Jan. 15, as crowds gather to shop for and celebrate Christmas.

Even Britain, which has taken a lax approach to mask wearing and other social-distancing measures, has stepped up its response in the face of Omicron. The country introduced new mask mandates and new travel restrictions and appeared to soften its opposition to vaccine passports and requiring masks in restaurants. And Britain’s vaccine advisory board announced on Monday that it is suggesting an expansion of the country’s booster program.

In Germany, already hard hit by the latest pandemic wave, fear of the Omicron variant was palpable.

“It feels different from the first bits of information we got about the Delta variant,” said Christian Drosten, a prominent German virologist, describing himself as “pretty worried.”

On Monday, the German government announced that Angela Merkel, state governors and Olaf Scholz, who is to succeed Ms. Merkel as chancellor next week, had moved up a planned meeting about potential lockdown measures by nine days.

“We need to buy time,” said Karl Lauterbach, a member of the Parliament and public health expert who is considered a strong candidate to be the new German government’s health minister, said on Twitter. “Nothing is worse than a new variant into an ongoing wave.”

Pauline Londeix, a prominent French advocate for broader access to medicines and transparent drug policies, told France Inter radio on Monday that variants would continue to emerge unless richer countries shared more vaccines. “We need a much more systemic approach,” she said.

The European Commission on Monday urged member states not to impose additional travel restrictions on their citizens.

In contrast to Europe’s patchwork of regulations, China has had a more consistent and plainer policy: It is essentially sealed off as it pursues a “zero Covid” strategy.

China has steadfastly kept a high wall against visitors from the rest of the world. Foreign residents and visa holders are allowed in only under limited circumstances, leading to concerns by some within the business world that Covid restrictions were leaving the country increasingly isolated.

Visitors must submit to two-week quarantines upon arrival and face potential limits on their movement after that. Movements are tracked via monitoring smartphone apps, which display color codes that can signal whether a person has traveled from or through an area with recent infections, triggering instructions to remain in one place.

In other parts of Asia, people are less focused on eradicating the virus than just surviving it.

“This news is terrifying,” said Gurinder Singh, 57, in New Delhi, who worried about his shop going under. “If this virus spreads in India, the government will shut the country again, and we will be forced to beg.”

Reporting was contributed by Declan Walsh from Nairobi, Patrick Kingsley from Jerusalem, Carlos Tejada from Seoul, Sameer Yasir from Srinagar, India, Lynsey Chutel from South Africa, Aurelien Breeden from Paris, Elian Peltier and Monika Pronczuk from Brussels, Megan Specia from London, Christopher F. Schuetze from Berlin, Emma Bubola from Rome and Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva.

Omicron Covid-19 variant could already be in U.S., Fauci says [NBC News, 28 Nov 2021]

By Nicole Acevedo

"We have not detected it yet, but when you have a virus that is showing this degree of transmissibility," it will "go essentially all over,” Biden's chief medical adviser said.


It is possible that omicron, a new coronavirus variant first detected in South Africa, could already be in the United States, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

While there are no confirmed cases of the new variant in the States, Fauci said he "would not be surprised" if omicron already made its way to the U.S.

"We have not detected it yet, but when you have a virus that is showing this degree of transmissibility and you're already having travel-related cases that they've been noted in Israel and Belgium and in other places — when you have a virus like this, it almost invariably is ultimately going to go essentially all over,” Fauci told "Weekend TODAY" on Saturday.

The new variant is concerning because it "has a large number of mutations" that potentially makes this virus more contagious than other variants, according to Fauci.

"We don't know that yet, but we're going to assume that's the case," he said, adding that the large number of mutations also suggested the new variant "could evade the protection" of coronavirus treatments such as monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma as well as the Covid-19 vaccines.

"These are all maybes, but the suggestion is enough," Fauci said. "This is something we got to pay really close attention to and be prepared for something that's serious. It may not turn out that way, but you really want to be ahead of it."

Two cases of the variant have been identified in the U.K., Health Secretary Sajid Javid said Saturday. He added that the people involved were linked to each other and to travel to southern Africa, where omicron was first detected earlier this week.

As public health experts try to find concrete answers to questions about whether the omicron variant causes more severe illness and if it can evade protection from vaccines and treatments, President Joe Biden announced new travel restrictions Friday.

Restrictions for travelers from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi are set to begin Monday.

Travel restrictions are only helpful in giving the U.S. more time to better assess the situation and respond accordingly; it won't stop the spread of the new variant, Fauci said.

Fauci, who also serves as Biden's chief medical adviser, doubled down on how it is "absolutely essential that unvaccinated people get vaccinated and that vaccinated people get boosters" and wear masks during indoor congregations.