New Coronavirus News from 30 Dec 2021

For the first time, Spain registers more than 100,000 new coronavirus infections in a day [EL PAÍS in English, 30 Dec 2021]

By MÓNICA LUENGO MONTERO

The sixth wave of the coronavirus pandemic continues to see exponential growth in Spain in terms of daily infections. In the latest report from the central Health Ministry, which was released on Wednesday evening, more than 100,000 daily infections were registered for the first time since the health crisis began. Specifically, there were 100,760 infections added to the total, as well as 78 Covid-related deaths.

The 14-day incidence rose a further 147 points to reach 1,508 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. In total, 6,133,057 coronavirus cases have been officially detected while 89,331 people in Spain have died after a positive test.

“We are in an epidemiological situation with a high level of circulation of the virus,” admitted yesterday Carolina Darias, the country’s health minister, after meeting on Wednesday with representatives of the regions’ health departments.

The cumulative incidence has been growing non-stop since November 3. On Monday of this week it saw its biggest rise in the pandemic so far, with a spike of nearly 300 points in the 14-day incidence from the previous Thursday (no data was released on Christmas Eve). Now, at 1,508 cases, the figure is nearly double what it was a week ago.

The regions with the highest incidence rates are Navarre (3,236), La Rioja (2,537) and the Basque Country (2,341). Given the flood of positive cases caused by the new, more contagious omicron variant, which is already dominant in Spain, Darias admitted on Wednesday that there is a “bottleneck” in terms of the communication of cases, and that the ministry is working with the regions in order to improve the accounting.

Despite the growth in infections, the Public Health Commission has opted to change the isolation protocols for positive cases, given that the infections being seen currently are in many cases asymptomatic or with mild symptoms. The incubation period with omicron also appears to be reduced. Last week, it was established that close contacts of positive cases who are fully vaccinated do not have to isolate. On Wednesday, the decision was taken to reduce the isolation of positive cases with mild symptoms or who are asymptomatic as well as unvaccinated close contacts from 10 to seven days.

In Spain’s hospitals, there are 10,411 Covid-19 patients receiving care right now, which is 559 more than the day before. The pressure on the country’s intensive care units (ICUs) is also rising, with 19.1% of beds occupied by coronavirus patients according to the latest report compared to 18.71% the day before – 37 new ICU patients in 24 hours.

“Despite the fact that the proportion of cases that need hospitalization in the ICU is significantly lower than last year around this time, when there was a lower incidence, it is true that the high incidences that we are registering right now are seeing this occupation rise bit by bit,” the health minister explained.

In terms of vaccination Spain administered 429,485 doses of a Covid-19 vaccine the previous day. Of this number, 40,985 shots were for the five- to 12-year-old group, 380,401 were booster shots and 8,099 were first or second doses for the over-12s. Currently, 79.8% of the population has been given at least one shot, while 81.7% have received the full protection offered by the vaccines.

The campaign moved on to the five- to 12-year-old group on December 15, and in the last two weeks 25.8% of children in this age range have been given their first shot. Meanwhile, 87.3% of the over-70s have been given a booster shot; for the 60-69 group the figure is 73.3%; for the 50-59 group it’s 26.4%; and 15% for the 40-49 group. Those who were originally vaccinated with the single-dose Janssen vaccine are also being given an additional shot of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, reaching 60.3% of this group so far.

Darias announced on Wednesday that the Zaragoza Military Defense Hospital has joined the vaccination campaign, and that there are 150 mobile vaccination teams from the Armed Forces that are being distributed around the country. Both of these measures were announced last week by the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, as a means to speed up the vaccination of the population.

Omicron cannot escape T cells; boosters protect households from Omicron [Reuters, 30 Dec 2021]

By Nancy Lapid

Dec 29 (Reuters) - The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that has yet to be certified by peer review.

Omicron cannot escape body's second-line defense
A key part of the immune system's second-line defense - its T cells - are highly effective at recognizing and attacking the Omicron variant, thereby preventing most infections from progressing to critical illness, a new study shows.

Omicron's mutations help it escape from antibodies, the body's first line of defense against infection. Researchers have speculated that other components of the immune response would still target Omicron, but there has been no proof until now.

In test tube experiments, researchers in South Africa exposed copies of the virus to T cells from volunteers who had received vaccines from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) or Pfizer(PFE.N)/BioNTech(22UAy.DE) or who had not been vaccinated but had developed their own T cells after infection with an earlier version of the coronavirus.

"Despite Omicron's extensive mutations and reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies, the majority of T cell response, induced by vaccination or natural infection, cross-recognizes the variant," the researchers reported on Tuesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review.

"Well-preserved T cell immunity to Omicron is likely to contribute to protection from severe COVID-19," which supports what South African doctors had initially suspected when most patients with Omicron infections did not become seriously ill, they said.

The "T" stands for thymus, the organ in which the cells' final stage of development occurs.

Boosters reduce risk of Omicron household transmission
The odds that vaccinated people will catch the virus if a household member becomes infected are nearly three to four times higher with Omicron than with Delta, but booster doses reduce that risk, new findings suggest.

Researchers analyzed transmission data collected from nearly 12,000 infected households in Denmark, including 2,225 households with an Omicron infection. Overall, there were 6,397 secondary infections in the week after the first infection in the house. After accounting for other risk factors, the rate of person-to-person spread of the virus to fully vaccinated people was roughly 2.6 times higher in Omicron households than in Delta households, the researchers reported on Monday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. Booster-vaccinated people were nearly 3.7 times more likely to get infected in the Omicron households than in the Delta households, they found.

Looking only at Omicron households, however, booster-vaccinated people were 56% less likely to become infected compared to vaccinated people who had not received a booster. And overall, when booster-vaccinated people were the ones who first brought home the virus, they were less likely than unvaccinated and vaccinated-but-not-boosted people to pass it to others.

Italian hospitals under strain as Covid hits new highs [FRANCE 24, 30 Dec 2021]

Rome (AFP) – "We are inundated," Antonino Marchese says wearily as his Rome Covid hospital fills up with patients, most of them unvaccinated despite tougher restrictions for Italians who are not jabbed.

As daily coronavirus infections in Italy hit new highs, hospital admissions across the country are surging once again due to the new Omicron variant and the persisting reluctance among some to get vaccinated.

At Rome's Casalpalocco Covid hospital, the situation has been serious for about a month, medical director Marchese told AFP.

Of the facility's 120 beds, 111 are filled by virus-stricken patients.

"We are inundated with requests for admission. It's a constant pressure," said Marchese, adding that he feared numbers would rise even higher.

Almost three-quarters of the hospital's Covid patients are unvaccinated, and some resist intubation when taken to the intensive care unit.

"Then they generally accept because they realise how serious it is and then they can no longer breathe on their own," he said.

The majority of patients in intensive care are elderly, but younger people also fill up beds "because they have to be constantly and precisely monitored to see if they need to be ventilated", Marchese said.

Throughout Italy hospitals are seeing a similar phenomenon.

Whereas 10 percent of intensive care beds were occupied by Covid patients on December 17, that number has crept up to 13 percent in the past two days, according to Italy's National Agency for Regional Health Services.

Some regions are under even more pressure, such as Veneto, at 18 percent, and Lazio -- of which Rome is the capital -- at 16 percent.

Although 85.8 percent of the country's population over the age of 12 has been fully inoculated, there remain roughly six million unvaccinated over-12s, according to official data.
"In my opinion, in Italy we've managed to steer the population towards a certain favourable vaccination trend," said Marchese.

"Of course, the no-vax people exist everywhere, even here."

- Twisting arms -
To try to convince them further, Italy's government on Wednesday announced even more stringent restrictions on the unvaccinated, effectively barring them from hotels, gyms, restaurants and even public transport.

From January 10, a new "reinforced" health pass -- which shows proof of vaccination status or recovery from Covid-19 -- will be required to access many places previously accessible to the unjabbed through a negative Covid test.

The new curbs, aimed at encouraging more people to get vaccinated, come as Italy posted a record 126,888 daily cases on Thursday.

The government also scrapped a 10-day quarantine requirement for fully vaccinated people who come into contact with a positive case, in a bid to stem the wave of asymptomatic employees forced to stay home.

There was also increasing speculation the government would impose a vaccination requirement -- currently for those in frontline positions such as teachers, medics and police -- for all jobs.

Back at the hospital, patient Roberto Cassina had already spent more than three weeks being cared for.

The unvaccinated 53-year-old said he was not even aware that he had Covid until "the situation degenerated and I went into respiratory failure".

While calling the hospital doctors and nurses his "guardian angels", Cassina said he was still on the fence over whether he would eventually get jabbed.

Across the hall, however, 75-year-old Gianpaolo Coin said he would not hesitate to get vaccinated, confessing to have been "very afraid" after contracting Covid.

"My wife and I, we thought we were going to die."

French MP's house attacked by suspected 'anti-vaxxers': COVID-19 Daily Bulletin [CGTN, 30 Dec 2021]

The garage of a French ruling party lawmaker was set on fire and an adjacent wall was scrawled with graffiti by suspected anti-vaccination protesters, as the government prepares to tighten vaccination legislation amid soaring infection numbers.

In Chambly, north of Paris, the house of Pascal Bois – an member of parliament for President Emmanuel Macron's ruling LREM party – was targeted. His car and garage were set on fire, and phrases including "Vote No" were spray-painted on the wall running around his house.

"Such criminal acts of intimidation are not acceptable in a democracy," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on his Twitter account on Thursday, adding that police had opened an investigation.

· Turkey has begun administering its domestically developed vaccine, Turkovac, at hospitals across the country, amid a rapid surge in infections due to the Omicron variant.

Turkey has already administered more than 130 million vaccines using shots developed by China's Sinovac and by Pfizer-BioNTech. It also began administering booster shots.

Turkovac received emergency use authorization from Turkish authorities last week after delays beset its launch for months.

· Italy scrapped self-isolation rules on Wednesday for those coming into contact with someone testing positive, provided they have had a booster shot, have recently recovered, or been vaccinated.

The move comes after health experts urged the government to rethink its policies amid worries that the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant could paralyze the country by forcing millions to stay at home.

Under the Italian measures, isolation will no longer be required for those who had a positive contact but have had a booster dose, have been vaccinated, or have recovered from the illness within the past 120 days, a cabinet statement said.

· A key part of the immune system's second-line defense – its T cells – is highly effective at recognizing and attacking the Omicron variant, thereby preventing most infections from progressing to critical illness, a new study shows.

Omicron's mutations help it escape from antibodies, the body's first line of defense against infection. Researchers have speculated that other components of the immune response would still target Omicron, but there has been no proof until now.

In test-tube experiments, researchers in South Africa exposed copies of the virus to T cells from volunteers who had received vaccines from Johnson & Johnson or Pfizer-BioNTech, or who had not been vaccinated but had developed their own T cells after infection with an earlier version of the coronavirus.

"Despite Omicron's extensive mutations and reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies, the majority of T cell response, induced by vaccination or natural infection, cross-recognizes the variant," the researchers reported on medRxiv ahead of peer review.

· Barcelona midfielder Philippe Coutinho, defender Sergino Dest and winger Ez Abde have tested positive for COVID-19, the Spanish soccer club said.

The La Liga side's squad has been hit by several COVID-19 cases, with Ousmane Dembele, Samuel Umtiti and Gavi set to miss Sunday's match with Real Mallorca after testing positive.

This week, players Clement Lenglet, Dani Alves, Jordi Alba, and Alejandro Balde also returned positive tests.

'Get ready to be kicked out,' Bali warns New Year Covid violators [FRANCE 24, 30 Dec 2021]

Denpasar (Indonesia) (AFP) – Foreign revellers on Indonesia's resort island of Bali have been warned they may be deported if they are caught violating Covid-19 health rules during New Year celebrations, authorities warned on Thursday.

"Get ready to be kicked out," Bali immigration office head Jamaruli Manihuruk said in an interview with AFP, warning that health rules must be observed as the country seeks to fend off the Omicron variant now sweeping the world.

Bali's governor has barred carnivals, fireworks and gatherings of more than 50 people over the Christmas and New Year period.

Malls, restaurants and cafes must shut by 10 pm, and only operate at 75 percent capacity.

Bali's beautiful tropical scenery, surf beaches and party scene have made it a playground for masses of Australian and New Zealand tourists, as well as those based in nearby cities such as Singapore.

Almost 200 tourists were deported from Bali in 2021, Manihuruk said, with seven booted out for violating Covid-19 protocols.

In July three foreign tourists from the United States, Ireland and Russia were sent home after they were caught not wearing masks in public during a raid.

In May, a Russian influencer and a US-based Taiwanese YouTuber were deported after posting a video where the former was seen strolling around Bali with a painted mask on her face.

The video sparked fury from Indonesians online, who demanded the pair apologise and be sent home.

Indonesia has been seriously hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

As of Wednesday, it had reported more than 4.2 million confirmed Covid-19 cases, and more than 144,000 deaths.

Bali alone reported more than 110,000 confirmed cases with over 4,000 deaths.

With vaccination rates relatively low, the country remains vulnerable to new outbreaks, especially of the more easily transmitted Omicron variant that is driving record case numbers in Europe.

There have been 68 confirmed cases of Omicron in Indonesia so far, according to government data.

Testing blackout and self-isolation crisis threaten New Year's Eve celebrations [Telegraph.co.uk, 30 Dec 2021]

By Ewan Somerville

Boris Johnson is under fire from his own scientific advisers as his New Year’s Eve strategy of caution is thrown into chaos by a testing blackout and a self-isolation crisis.

The Prime Minister had pinned his hopes of avoiding further restrictions on people testing before gatherings on Friday night, and urged revellers to celebrate in a "cautious and sensible way".

But lateral flow and PCR tests were unavailable across England on Thursday in the fourth consecutive day of mass shortages, meaning key workforces are being forced to isolate for ten days. Current rules allow people infected with Covid to escape isolation at seven days if they can provide proof of negative lateral flow tests on days six and seven.

Government scientific advisers warned the “very worrying” crescendo of crises could make New Year’s Eve a super-spreader event, while NHS leaders said isolation rules have become a “massive problem”.

As criticism mounts:
• Prof Peter Openshaw, a scientist on the Government’s Nervtag group, said it was “very worrying indeed” that people may be unable to test before parties;
• Prof Andrew Hayward accused Mr Johnson of "mixed messaging" over New Year's Eve parties, which he said could be “giving this omicron variant a big boost";
• The Royal College of GPs accused Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, of “mixed messages” on the reasons for test shortages, adding that omicron is “spreading like wildfire” and staff absences are having “massive implications” on practices;
• NHS Providers said “significant numbers of ambulances are off the road” in some areas due to staff absences;
• The Royal College of Nursing said “we have no idea” how eight new Nightingale hospital units would be staffed.

Follow the latest updates below.
Thanks for following our live updates, we'll be back in the morning. Here is a summary of the latest developments - and scroll down for more details on each.

• Boris Johnson came under fire from his own scientific advisers for a "very worrying" testing blackout and "mixed messaging" threatening his New Year’s Eve advice to act cautiously.

Senior figures within the health service also rounded on "significant" disruption being caused by self-isolation rules.
• Government advice on coronavirus symptoms must be updated because three quarters of people with new cold-like symptoms are likely to have Covid, scientists on the ZOE Covid Study said.
• Supplies of Covid tests are likely to be rationed over the next fortnight to cope with "huge demand", Sajid Javid admitted, after those trying to follow the Prime Minister's advice to test ahead of New Year's Eve parties were unable to book tests anywhere in England on the Gov.UK website for much of the day.
• A booster shot of Johnson and Johnson’s single dose vaccine was found to reduce Omicron hospitalisations in South African healthcare workers by 84 per cent.
• The Health Secretary said he was "appalled" by the "vile behaviour" of anti-vaccine protesters who entered a test and trace centre in Milton Keynes on Wednesday.
• Wales came to Downing Street's aid by loaning a further four million lateral flow tests to the NHS in England, amid growing concerns over shortages.
• Ministers were seeking urgent clarification after France quietly banned UK nationals from travelling by car across the country to homes in other European Union states.
• Disruption to rail services worsened due to pandemic-related staff shortages, as commuter operator Southern announced that none of its trains would run to or from London Victoria until January 10.
• The Welsh government was warned its decision to shut parkrun events will have a "long term" impact on physical activity levels.

4:54pm
Covid hospital figure rises to highest since February
A total of 11,452 people were in hospital in England with Covid-19 as of 8am on December 30, according to figures from NHS England.

This is up 61 per cent from a week earlier and is the highest number since February 26.

However, the Covid hospital statistics do not differentiate between those in hospital because of Covid, and the significant proportion of “incidental” admissions. These are patients who have tested positive, often asymptomatically, after being admitted for an unrelated reason, not Covid.

During the second wave of coronavirus, the number peaked at 34,336 on January 18.

In London, 3,477 people were in hospital with Covid-19 on December 30, up 66 per cent week-on-week and the highest number since February 16. The second-wave peak for London was 7,917 on January 18.

Some of the rise may account for fewer discharges of patients over the Christmas period, and people in hospital who have recovered from Covid but not yet been discharged.

Wales has come to Downing Street's aid by loaning a further four million lateral flow tests to the NHS in England, amid growing concerns over shortages.

There has been a surge in demand for Covid-19 tests as people try to comply with advice to limit the spread of the Omicron variant by ensuring they do not have coronavirus before socialising.

But by 9am on Thursday, home delivery slots for lateral flow tests were unavailable on the Gov.uk website. Pharmacies have also complained about patchy supplies of lateral flow kits.

It brings the total given to England from Wales to 10 million. The Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford said: "Wales has a significant stock of lateral flow tests, sufficient to meet our needs over the weeks ahead."

In a letter to MPs, England's health secretary Sajid Javid said the supply of lateral flows would triple in January and February from a pre-omicron plan of 100 million to 300 million per month, with testing levels at a record high.

Wales will follow England by reducing its mandatory self-isolation period for people who test positive for Covid-19 from 10 days to seven, the Welsh Government has said.

People will be able to cut short the amount of time they need to isolate if they have two negative lateral flow tests taken on days six and seven.

Initially the rule-change was due for January 5, but it will now come into force several days earlier on December 31.

The change, announced on Thursday as part of the Welsh Government's weekly review of coronavirus restrictions, is to alleviate the impact of self-isolation on critical jobs.

A booster shot of Johnson and Johnson’s single dose vaccine has been found to reduce Omicron hospitalisations in South African healthcare workers by 84 per cent, Tom Collins writes.

Researchers said on Thursday that the US vaccine’s effectiveness rose from 63 per cent without a booster to a maximum of 85 per cent around one to two months after another shot.

The South African Medical Research Council carried out the study, which has not been peer-reviewed and was published on the research portal medRXiv. It looked at almost 70,000 healthcare workers between November 15 to December 20.

The omicron variant, which has sent many countries into Christmas lockdowns, was first identified in South Africa on November 24.

Despite initial concerns, new infections in South Africa have fallen by 40 per cent this week suggesting that the latest Covid-19 mutation will cause less disruption than past variants. The South Africa study backs up similar research in other countries which shows that a booster shot provides significant protection against the omicron variant.

Linda-Gail Bekker of the University of Cape Town, the study’s co-lead investigator, said: "It reassures us that Covid-19 vaccines continue to be effective for the purpose they were designed, which is to protect people against severe disease and death."

She added that it is too early to tell whether a third or fourth shot may be needed in the coming months.

The Health Secretary has said he was "appalled" by the "vile behaviour" of anti-vaccine protesters who entered a test and trace centre in Milton Keynes on Wednesday.

Sajid Javid's comments follow an incident in which dozens of marchers entered the facility and appeared to damage and remove testing equipment in videos shared on social media.

He joins Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, who condemned the scenes as "completely unacceptable", adding that the police had her "full support" to take action against those involved.

I was appalled to see Piers Corbyn and his mob threaten NHS test and trace staff who are working so hard to keep people safe.

This kind of vile behaviour is unacceptable.
— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) December 30, 2021
2/ …and it is completely unacceptable that conspiracy theorists are intimidating and harassing those administering tests or delivering the life-saving vaccine programme.

The police have my full support to take swift action where necessary.
— Priti Patel (@pritipatel) December 30, 2021

Pope Francis has cancelled his traditional New Year's Eve visit to the Nativity scene in St Peter's Square over concerns of spreading coronavirus among the gathered crowds, the Vatican said on Thursday.
The pontiff is normally met by well-wishers when he visits the crib on December 31, after presiding over the end-of-year Vespers and chanting of the Te Deum prayer.
But the Vatican said in a diary note that "the event will not be held, to avoid gatherings and the subsequent risks of Covid-19 infection".
Francis, 85, on Wednesday held his weekly general audience as usual in the Paul VI hall in the Vatican, with masks and social distancing.
But as elsewhere in Europe, Italy - and by extension the tiny Vatican City State - is facing a surge in coronavirus cases fuelled by the new Omicron variant.
Germany has announced it will lift strict travel rules for people arriving from countries hardest hit by the omicron coronavirus variant in early January.
All countries currently listed in the country's "virus variant" category, including the UK and several southern African nations, will be reclassified as "high risk" from January 4, said the government health agency, Robert Koch Institute.
The change, announced on Thursday, ends a ban on entry for travellers who are not German residents or citizens, instead allowing anyone to enter as long as they observe quarantine and testing rules.
Germany introduced its "virus variant" travel category in a bid to stop new coronavirus strains that have not yet spread widely on its territory, with 16,748 omicron infections so far reported.
A cultural shift towards seeing all illness as something to be defeated needs to be resisted, writes Prof Robert Dingwall, a former government Covid adviser, on our comment pages.
Ministers should continue to push back against restrictions by applying the test that should have been applied from at least April 2020: would we in November 2019 have considered implementing the non-pharmaceutical intervention in question ahead of a flu season? If the answer is no, an evidence-based justification should always have been required to introduce it – and certainly to continue with it today.
Daily coronavirus infections in Scotland are the highest on record at 16,857, according to the latest data.
The figures published by the Scottish Government also showed that nine deaths from the virus were recorded north of the border in the past 24 hours, taking the overall total to 9,845.
There were also 810 people in hospital on Wednesday with Covid, with 34 in intensive care.
Addressing the figures, Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, tweeted: "Yet another record tally of reported cases in today - reflecting fact that omicron is very, very infectious.
"Likelihood of getting it just now if you mix with others is high. Though remember - being boosted gives you significant protection against becoming very ill with it.
"Just as notable than cases is the steep rise in hospital occupancy, the largest single day increase in a while - a reminder that even if there is a lower percentage hospitalised through omicron, sheer volume will still put acute pressure on NHS - and result in serious illness for many.
"As we approach the New Year, I am appealing to everyone to keep following this advice - for you own sake and also to help the NHS."
A total of 435,293 booster and third doses of a Covid-19 vaccine were reported in the UK on Wednesday, new figures show. This is the highest daily figure since December 23.
More than 33.5 million booster and third doses have now been delivered in the UK, with 1.8 million in the past seven days.
Around 63 per cent of all adults in the UK have now received a booster or third dose.
Government advice on coronavirus symptoms must be updated because three quarters of people with new cold-like symptoms are likely to have Covid, scientists have said.
The ZOE Covid Study estimates that 75 per cent of people experiencing new cold-like symptoms are likely to have symptomatic Covid-19.
This is up from around 50 per cent last week, with the study reporting that the data was showing a fall in the number of non-Covid "colds" and a rise in symptomatic coronavirus infections.
Dr Claire Steves, scientist on the ZOE Covid Study app, said that while the number of daily new symptomatic Covid cases was more than double what it was this time last year, at 192,290 on average, exponential growth appeared to have stopped.
"It's good news to see that fewer people are newly sick than a few weeks ago," she said.
"However, the fact that 75 per cent of new cold-like symptoms are Covid, and the classic symptoms are much less common, means the Government advice needs to be urgently updated.
"We want to see symptoms like sore throat, headache and runny nose added to the list as soon as possible."
Disruption to rail services is worsening due to pandemic-related staff shortages and industrial action.
Southern announced that none of its trains will run to or from London Victoria until January 10 due to "coronavirus isolation and sickness".
London Victoria is one of the UK's busiest stations, and is normally connected by Southern to locations such as Brighton, Eastbourne and Portsmouth.
Meanwhile, CrossCountry urged customers to avoid travelling on New Year's Eve as a strike by members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union means it will run "a very limited timetable".
Many other operators in addition to Southern have cancelled trains due to the impact of the pandemic.They include Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, Greater Anglia, London North Eastern Railway, Northern, ScotRail, TransPennine Express and Transport for Wales.
Supplies of Covid tests are likely to be rationed over the next fortnight to cope with "huge demand" from members of the public, Sajid Javid has admitted.
The Health Secretary told MPs in a late night letter sent to all MPs in England that access to tests will need to be prioritised to "vulnerable groups", such as care home residents and staff.
This would mean that "we expect to need to constrain the system at certain points over the next two weeks to manage supply", he said.
Mr Javid also unveiled plans to treble the supply of lateral flow devices (LFDs) in January and February from the planned 100million tests to 300million tests.
His comments came as Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, said that the Edinburgh Government was also now "prioritising some [testing] slots for essential workers – such as NHS and transport staff – as well as for those who are clinically vulnerable or eligible for new Covid treatments".

Ministers are seeking urgent clarification after France quietly banned UK nationals from travelling by car across the country to homes in other European Union states.
Non-essential travel from the UK to France has been prohibited since December 18 in a bid to limit the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, but several exemptions had been in place.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office updated its travel advice for France to state: "The French government have indicated that UK nationals travelling from the UK who are not resident in France will not be permitted to transit France to return to their country of residence unless they are travelling by air.
"We are urgently seeking further clarification from the French government, and in the meantime advise UK nationals returning to other European countries via France to check with their carrier before travelling."
This will affect those who planned to avoid air travel to return to their homes in the EU after spending Christmas with friends and relatives in the UK. Eurotunnel Le Shuttle said France changed the policy on Tuesday.
In the latest criticism of ministers over Covid chaos this morning, the chairman of the Royal College of GPs has condemned the Health Secretary and NHS Test and Trace officials for "mixed messages" over widespread test shortages.
Professor Martin Marshall said that the demand for tests had gone up "dramatically" as people seek to check their Covid status before socialising or coming out of isolation. Testing levels are at a record high, along with infections.
Tory MP Sir Roger Gale relayed that Sajid Javid had told him there was a "worldwide shortage" of lateral flow tests on Wednesday but Prof Marshall said the issue had also been framed as a "local logistics problem".
"It does seem to be that there's some mixed messages here because the Secretary of State said yesterday that there was a global shortage because demand globally in most countries for testing has gone up massively," Prof Marshall told Times Radio.
"But we're also, as you say, told by the UK Health Security Agency that there's a local logistics problem of delivering to pharmacies and delivering to the warehouses that supply the online suppliers of the testing."
He added: "The Government advice is reasonably clear about what people need to do before they're allowed to socialise, before they're allowed to release after self-isolation, but there's no point in having that advice if as GPs we know we're no longer able to help patients to actually act on that advice, and that's a big issue for us."
A Sage scientist has taken aim at Boris Johnson's "mixed messaging" on New Year's Eve parties, and warned that adequate supplies of testing are "critical" to allow safe socialising to continue.
Boris Johnson has given the green light to parties on Friday night in a "cautious and sensible way".
But Professor Andrew Hayward, a member of the Sage advisory group and an epidemiologist at UCL, said "it's difficult to imagine a better way of spreading Covid and giving this omicron variant a big boost" than attending a New Year's party in a crowded indoor environment with strangers.
"I find it odd, really, that we're in a situation where we're worried enough about the wave of omicron to build new Nightingale capacity but we're not worried enough to suggest to people that New Year's Eve parties are not a good idea," he told Sky News.
"Obviously people taking tests is a useful way of minimising that risk, but you only need one or two people in the venue not to have taken a test, to still get a major amount of transmission associated with that sort of event.
"The advice to be cautious is in a sense going to an indoor party is the opposite of being cautious so it feels like quite mixed messaging to me."
Amid worsening shortages of tests, Prof Hayward stressed that "having availability of tests is a critical thing if we're going to continue to be able to socialise as normal".
Residents in a locked-down city in China say they are still struggling to get hold of food, despite Beijing insisting there are enough supplies.
All 13 million residents of Xi'an were placed under lockdown eight days ago as part of the country's "zero Covid" approach, and local officials admitted that there had been trouble providing essential supplies.
The central government insisted Thursday there were "sufficient" supplies in the city, but Xi'an residents said they were still struggling.
"I didn't get any food delivered to me," one female resident in the city told the AFP news agency. "I managed to order something from our convenience store downstairs two days ago, but not today."
"I have rice at home... I have several eggs left - one per meal, one meal per day," she said.
Another resident who didn't want to be named told reporters she only had enough food because she had persuaded a guard at her block to let her slip out to the supermarket for half an hour, but that the food was not fresh and police had since been stationed outside her compound.

The number of deaths involving coronavirus registered each week in England and Wales dropped slightly ahead of Christmas, though it may be too soon to see any impact in the figures of the current surge in Covid-19 cases.
A total of 755 deaths registered in the week ending December 17 mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate, according to the Office for National Statistics.
This is down 1 per cent on the previous week and is the lowest number of deaths since the week to October 15, when the total was 713.
Deaths have remained at a low level throughout the latest wave of cases, with the weekly total between roughly 700 and 1,000 for the past few months.
By contrast, 8,433 deaths involving Covid-19 were registered in England and Wales in the week to January 29, at the peak of the second wave of the virus, as the vaccines take effect.
Health bosses have been forced into a climbdown after wrongly telling people that they have to self-isolate for longer than necessary if they catch Covid-19.
The Telegraph revealed on Tuesday that people testing positive for Covid were being told to self-isolate for 10 days, in apparent contravention of a change in the guidance by Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, last week.
There were fears that the incorrect information from officials was exacerbating a staff shortage crisis blighting the health service, transport and other sectors.
However, the UK Health Security Agency has now clarified that people can in fact leave self-isolation after seven days if they have taken tests, reflecting the change in policy announced by Mr Javid.
The agency, responsible for NHS Test and Trace, said on Wednesday that it had now updated all of its communications so that from Thursday, everyone in the country will get the correct messages about self-isolation.
The chairman of the Royal College of GPs has said large numbers of people have not turned up to get vaccinated, with as few as 50 out of 700 slots available being taken in some areas.
Professor Martin Marshall said NHS staff had found slow uptake over the Christmas period "frustrating".
"The vaccination programme is going OK but it's been pretty slow over the Christmas period, particularly in the GP centres because they were finding people just weren't turning up. Sometimes, you know, maybe only 50 places out of six or 700 places were being taken up," he told Times Radio.
"I suspect that will pick up again come January but it's been a little bit frustrating for the staff that have been involved so far."
We've got more Covid testing chaos this morning, as those trying to follow Boris Johnson's advice to test regularly ahead of New Year's Eve are unable to get hold of tests.
The Gov.UK website shows there are "no home delivery slots left for rapid lateral flow tests right now" anywhere in England, despite people needing two of these to escape isolation at seven days instead of ten under new rules.
And for PCR tests the Gov.UK website currently says no appointments at test sites are available anywhere in England.
There are also no home PCR testing kits available for either essential workers or the general public.
Earlier, a Government scientific adviser said the testing fiasco was "very worrying" (see 8.58am). Lateral flows and PCRs were also out of stock for most of Wednesday, while pharmacies are having to wait days for deliveries and turn people away.
Omicron is still "spreading like wildfire" and causing "massive problems" for doctors surgeries, the chairman of the Royal College of GPs has said.
Prof Martin Marshall said the growing numbers of staff being forced to self-isolate combined with the challenges of ramping up the booster vaccine programme were putting practices under strain.
Efforts to increase vaccinations have been particularly difficult in London, the epicentre of the new variant's spread, because uptake is slower in the capital, he told Times Radio. Prof Marshall, who works as a GP in east London, added:
Covid is still spreading like wildfire and that's having massive implications on the health service generally.
What we're seeing is more and more patients that we're seeing in general practice, we're advising in general practice, with Covid symptoms.
We're seeing increased numbers of staff who are having to self-isolate and either working from home if they've got the electronic capability to do so or just not being able to contribute, and that's putting pressure on the rest of the staff left in general practice.
NHS staff absences due to Covid-19 are "clearly now having a significant impact" across the whole economy and parts of the health service, NHS Providers has acknowledged.
Chris Hopson, the head of the body, which represents trusts, said that some NHS ambulance leaders "are saying their current staff absence rates mean significant numbers of ambulances off the road, given the need to have appropriately trained staff in each ambulance".
It was "obviously a particular issue for NHS trusts if they can't provide right quality of care due to Covid absences" and he added that if the pressures continued to rise then so would calls to reduce the self-isolation period to five days, as has happened in the US.
But Mr Hopson warned there were "difficult trade offs" because of the potential for an increased infection risk both in hospitals and the community.
He added: "NHS experience suggests that the impact varies considerably depending on how many staff are isolating, driven by local community infection rates; ability to rapidly source temporary replacement staff; and ability to flex existing staff to cover work of those who are absent."
The shift from a 10-day self-isolation period to seven days, with two negative tests, has been approved following analysis by the UK Health Security Agency showing it offered the same level of protection.
The Welsh government has been warned its decision to shut parkrun events will have a "long term" impact on physical activity levels.
The free weekly 5k events have been forced to shut after Mark Drakeford, Wales' First Minister, imposed a limit of 50 people on outdoor gatherings, a decision which has been publicly rebuked by Sajid Javid, the health secretary in England.
Tom Williams, parkrun's global chief operating officer, said it had delivered 50,000 different parkrun events globally since reopening in the pandemic in which one million people had taken part - without a single case of Covid transmission.
"The longer that we have to keep parkrun closed in Wales, the more impact there is going to be not just in the short term but the long term," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"Certainly January and February are really busy for us and a lot of people get into walking, running and volunteering for the first time and keep that habit throughout the year. So if we miss out in January then that's a lot of people who are going to be a lot less active."
He said parkrun had developed a Covid-19 framework with leading scientists and that the science showed its running events were "really, really safe". Some 125,000 people took part in Christmas Day parkrun events without any confirmed Covid transmission reports.
"As a charity with responsibility for public health, wellbeing and increasing activity, it's important that we champion that and that where physical activity is restricted without evidence, that we ask for that evidence to be presented and hopefully the decision can be changed," he said.
The head of the Oxford Vaccine Group said he felt "most worried" about unvaccinated people amid the rapid spread of the omicron variant.
Prof Andrew Pollard said developers had begun "first steps" towards preparing to modify vaccines to combat future strains of coronavirus but that the "focus" should be on those who have still not received a first dose.
"I actually feel most worried today about the unvaccinated people, whether they're here in the UK or elsewhere in the world, because we do have now a variant which spreads remarkably effectively so it's going to be finding many of those unvaccinated people in the weeks ahead," he told BBC Breakfast.
"Those who are unvaccinated remain at risk here in the UK and in other countries around the world, so that perhaps needs to be our focus."
A Government scientific adviser has condemned the "very worrying" coronavirus testing shortage blighting the country after lateral flow and PCR tests were unavailable to order for much of this week.
No PCR or rapid lateral flow tests were available to book anywhere in England for much of Wednesday, while pharmacies are having to wait days for deliveries of lateral flow home testing kits.
Prof Peter Openshaw, an immunologist at Imperial College London and a member of the UK Vaccine network, expressed concern that it could lead to people mixing over the New Year without knowing whether they are infectious.
"I think it's very worrying indeed - we know the situations in which transmission happens," the Nervtag advisory committee member told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"Fortunately I don't think we're facing the sort of lockdown that was necessary in order to cope in the very earliest part of this year, but we do know that crowding together in poorly ventilated spaces, particularly if you're shouting over loud music and so on, is absolutely perfect in terms of transmitting this very highly transmittable virus."
He added that while the current record infection figures are unsurprising, "what we haven't seen is what will happen to people who haven't been vaccinated - there's a lot of those who are eligible for vaccines have chosen not to take them - and what will happen to the older more vulnerable population."
Sajid Javid has told MPs there will be "no quick fix" to the growing Covid testing crisis, with officials warning that the system will be overwhelmed within days.
On Wednesday, Mr Javid, the Health Secretary, privately admitted that there was a worldwide shortage of tests. Business leaders have warned of an effective New Year lockdown as workers unable to get tested are forced to stay at home.
Boris Johnson was criticised for telling partygoers to get tested even though no PCR tests were available to book anywhere in England for much of Wednesday, while pharmacies are having to wait days for deliveries of lateral flow home testing kits.
On Wednesday, 183,037 Covid cases were reported in the UK – a new daily record – although the figures were skewed upwards by delayed data from Northern Ireland.
The Government's new policy of allowing people who test positive to stop self-isolating after seven days if they have two negative tests has created a surge in demand for tests – but capacity has not significantly increased.
The director of the Oxford Vaccine Group has spoken of the "extraordinary moment" in vaccine development as the UK marks one year since becoming the first country to approve the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Professor Andrew Pollard said the team of researchers had felt an "enormous amount of pressure" to complete the process, which would usually have taken up to 15 years.
Prof Pollard praised the work of scientists and volunteers for helping to speed up the development of the jab against expectations.
He described the process as "an extraordinary moment to be involved in vaccine development with the enormous connection of the work we do here at Oxford University with the public".
"[It] is usually a laborious process that takes 10 to 15 years, and so it was a fairly daunting task, not least because most of the commentary at the time was [that] we won't have a vaccine for years and we really were absolutely aware that if we didn't have a vaccine there would be many millions more people in the world who would have died, and so an enormous amount of pressure," he said.
"The actual mechanics of doing the trials is the same as we would normally do, it's just that lots of causes of delay in normal production were taken out.
"We didn't have to wait for funding approval between each step in the development process and it was relatively easy to find volunteers who really wanted to contribute in the pandemic."
Eight new hubs are being set up to accommodate around 100 patients each next to hospitals as the NHS goes on a "war footing" to battle the omicron variant.
But Pat Cullen, the Royal College of Nursing general secretary, questioned how the new units would be staffed amid a worsening self-isolation crisis forcing healthcare workers to stay at home for at least seven days after testing positive for Covid.
"You can set up all the hubs that you wish to set up but if you don't have the nursing staff to actually care for the patients that are going to be placed in those hubs, that places more challenges on the nursing workforce," she told Sky News.
"The nursing workforce already are struggling massively to care for the patients that are already in hospital and if we set up hubs and put up additional beds that's going to place more pressure on those nurses.
"So at this point in time we have no idea how we're going to be staffing those additional hubs as they're set up."

'Not this hard on terrorists or migrant traffickers' Macron brutally shut down over curbs [Daily Express, 30 Dec 2021]

By STEVEN BROWN

EMMANUEL MACRON has been brutally shut down after he expressed his intention to be firm against the non-vaccinated French population.

On December 27, the French President made it known that he intended to be firm with the French population who have not yet received any dose of a COVID-19 vaccination. He said he heard the call of the French which is why he does not want to increase the restrictions.

He said: "We need to take proportionate measures.

"As soon as we take measures that affect the vaccinated, we move away from our strategy and the line we've been following since the beginning: putting constraints on the non-vaccinated remains our absolute goal.

"The French are exhausted. Young people do not want to be at home.

"We can't stop everything: social links, work, leisure, economy.

"It is out of the question. I must look after the health of the French, but also their morale".

However, the French President is facing backlash from his own Senate and Opposition parties following his announcement, with many announcing they will not vote for the bill.

Julien Odoul, spokesperson for the National Rally party in France, tweeted: "Never before has this government targeted Islamic terrorists, drug traffickers, or illegal immigrants with such violence.

"This hunt for the non-vaccinated is an infamy.

US sports leagues scramble amid Covid spike [FRANCE 24, 30 Dec 2021]

3 min

Los Angeles (AFP) – The NBA, NFL and NHL are scrambling to keep teams competing, even as Covid case rates skyrocket in the United States and Canada due to the Omicron variant.

As of Wednesday, the United States had hit its highest ever average of new Covid cases, with a seven-day average of 265,427 surpassing the previous peak of 251,989, set in mid-January 2021 -- according to a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

But as evidence mounted of milder outcomes under the new variant, sports leagues were grappling with how best to adjust their coronavirus protocols to protect players, staff and fans while still keeping their schedules intact.

The NBA, NFL and NHL all changed their return-to-play rules for players who test positive for Covid 19.

The NFL reduced the period of isolation for both vaccinated and unvaccinated players from 10 to as little as five days if they are asymptomatic.

The NBA reduced quarantine time from 10 days to six for asymptomatic, vaccinated players who test positive as they try to avoid the kind of game cancellations that hit Miami on Wednesday -- when the Heat found themselves without the requisite eight players to take the floor.

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra admitted that navigating the Omicron surge was sometimes "perplexing", as people with no visible illness were suddenly ruled out amid the league's increased testing.

"I think we've gotten to a point where we need more information," Spoelstra said. "Are there more asymptomatic cases? And all this is with the caveat of, OK, with double vaccination, with a booster and then asymptomatic -- what does that mean and what adjustments can we make from there."

While it is good news that more of those sidelined by Covid show no signs of serious illness, that does not necessarily help the quest to maintain competitive balance when key players are ruled out.

That problem is especially acute in the NFL, with playoff berths up for grabs in the final two weeks of the regular season.

More than 500 NFL players have tested positive for coronavirus in December.

Indianapolis Colts quarterback Carson Wentz, who is unvaccinated, was among them -- a potentially massive blow for a team that is in the thick of the chase for a wild card playoff spot.

However, Wentz and the Colts could benefit from the NFL guidelines revised in the wake of new CDC recommendations that allow for a quicker return of both vaccinated and unvaccinated players who have had no fever for 24 hours and whose other symptoms, such as a cough, "have resolved or improved".

That might mollify Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who complained on a podcast this week that the NFL had created an unfair "two-class system" for vaccinated and unvaccinated players.

But teams still have a bewildering array of variables to negotiate, from the NFL's return to stricter masking and social distancing rules in club facilities to varying local public health regulations.

Covid crapshoot
Many teams have tightened up their social distancing rules, going back to virtual meetings in a bid to keep players healthy.

"It's tough, especially with the NFC and AFC playoff races close," Colts defensive lineman DeForest Buckner said. "I just feel like the teams that can handle the Covid-19 situation are going to be the ones that are going to be able to pull out and get into the playoffs, to be honest."

The NBA are still shy of their season mid-point, but the uncertainties posed by the virus are taking a toll nonetheless.

"It's literally a crapshoot every single time you take a test at this point on who is negative and who is positive," Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James said. "You've just got to see who is available and go from there."

Coronavirus cases have led to cancelled training and less than a dozen cancelled games in the NBA, but teams have had to cope without head coaches sidelined by the virus and in some cases filled out lineups with journeymen from the developmental league under special signing rules implemented to keep the season rolling.

"Of course there's a certain amount of unfairness," NBA commissioner Adam Silver said of a solution that sees depleted teams soldiering on.

"But the other advantage is we do have an 82-game season and we have a long playoffs and my sense is things will work out by the end of the season."

Why are French political rallies exempt from Covid-19 crowd limits? [The Local France, 30 Dec 2021]

By Sam Bradpiece

As Covid cases soar in France the government has imposed limits on the size of large gatherings, but political meetings are exempt from this rule - here's why.

Although the French 2022 presidential campaign has yet to officially begin, les meetings politiques (political rallies) are well underway.

During these events, it is common to see party supporters on their feet, unmasked, screaming support for their favourite candidate or, in the case of some of far-right polemicist Eric Zemmour’s fans, attacking anti-racism activists.

As France tops 200,000 daily Covid cases, this has raised serious concerns about the potential public health impact of these rallies, which are typically held inside.

On December 27th, the government announced that it would introduce such capacity limits for all indoor events at 2,000 people and for all outdoor events at 5,000 people. But there was one important exception.

“It is clear that these measures that I have announced do not concern political rallies,” said Prime Minister Jean Castex.

Political parties can ask rally attendees to show a health pass – but are not obliged too.

So why is that?
The right to hold political meetings is enshrined in article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – a declaration that was created and ratified in Paris. The European Court of Human Rights also enshrines the liberty to hold political meetings.

The French government has argued that it would be unconstitutional to apply capacity limits to political meetings, which are protected under an 1881 law.

According to Article 58 of the current French constitution, “The Constitutional Council ensures the regularity of presidential elections.” This means that the freedom to hold political meetings could only be scrapped if the council says so.

The government has drawn extensively on rulings from the country’s Constitutional Council, which has said that Covid restrictions cannot be used to ban political rallies. In May, it also said that the health pass does not have to be applied to political rallies – a judgement reiterated in November.

And it’s not just rallies, political marches and demonstrations are also exempt from restrictions, demos were specifically exempt from even the first, extremely strict, lockdown that France imposed back in March 2020.

So what will political parties do?

Although they legally can organise large rallies, many candidates recognise that holding potential super-spreader events would not be a good idea.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s party, La République en Marche (LREM), has announced that it would respect the capacity limits imposed on cultural events during its political rallies ahead of the election – which as they stand at present means no more than 2,000 people at indoor rallies or 5,000 people outdoors.

The Parti Socialiste candidate Anne Hidalgo, centre-right les Républicains candidate Valérie Pécrésse and Green candidate Yannick Jadot all say they will all do the same.

READ ALSO Who’s who in the race to unseat Macron?

Candidates including Hidalgo have required supporters to carry a valid health pass to attend rallies – but others like far right leader Marine Le Pen and far left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon have categorically refused to do so.

Le Pen, Zemmour and Mélenchon have also signalled that they will not respect the capacity limits that apply to cultural events – Mélenchon said that to do so would be akin to committing “liberticide”.

On Monday, the Prime Minister announced that the Interior Ministry and the Constitutional Council would bring together all political parties, “to reach an agreement on some rules that can protect us given the health situation.”

He said any new rules would have to take into account the “specificity of this fundamental activity – that is to say, the exercise of democracy”.

Medical professionals have blasted politicians for allowing large political rallies to go ahead.
“We are in the middle of an epidemic. If these meetings don’t follow the same recommendations as those for concerts, they will massively lead to further circulation of the virus, while at the same time, the Prime Minister is asking us to make an effort,” said Constance Delaugerre, a hospital virologist.

“The virus doesn’t give a damn about whether we are in a political rally or a music concert, said Djillali Annane, head of the intensive care unit of Garches hospital, on LCI. “The risk of spread is the same”

French pop stars, including Julien Doré, joked that they would re-brand their concerts as political rallies in order to allow performances to go ahead.

The year 2020 saw postponement of the second round of polling in local elections.

However, the French Constitution also stipulates limits on the length of mandate for the president, which means that the presidential elections – scheduled for April – cannot be postponed without the approval of the Constitutional Council.

COVID: German minister says cases much higher than data show; France logs record number of new infections [The New Indian Express, 30 Dec 2021]

Statistics in recent days have continued to show Germany's infection rate drifting downward from a spike caused by the delta variant.

BERLIN: Germany's health minister said Wednesday that the country's coronavirus infection rate is likely two to three times higher than statistics currently show, and urged his compatriots to be cautious during New Year's celebrations.

Statistics in recent days have continued to show Germany's infection rate drifting downward from a spike caused by the delta variant.

But officials have cautioned repeatedly that, as in previous holiday periods, the numbers will be incomplete over Christmas and the new year because fewer tests are being performed and there are delays in reporting tests that are carried out.

At the same time, neighbouring France is reporting record numbers fuelled by the new omicron variant.

On Wednesday, Germany's official data showed 40,043 reported new cases over the past 24 hours and an infection rate, or incidence, of 205.5 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days.

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said that “the underreporting is probably of the order that the actual incidence is currently two or three times as high as the incidence we are measuring.

"We are also seeing a significant increase in omicron cases that causes us concern," he added.
The minister said there is a "shortfall" in staff that "becomes particularly noticeable" over holiday periods at local health offices, a key part of Germany's reporting chain.

He said that improving that situation will be a "central task" for him in the coming year.

Lauterbach advised Germans to spend the New Year's period "very cautiously" and celebrate only in very small groups.

Restrictions that took effect over recent days included limiting private gatherings to 10 people.
Large-scale New Year's celebrations have been canceled and the sale of fireworks banned.

He said he's sure that there will be "solid and sufficient" data on infections by the time Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Germany's 16 state governors confer on the way forward in the pandemic on Jan.7.

Lauterbach noted that Germany's vaccination campaign has kicked back into gear after a brief Christmas lull and appealed to people who haven't yet got a booster to book an appointment.

So far, 71 of the population has received a full first vaccination course and 37.3 per cent has received a booster.

France's Health Minister Olivier Veran announced that the country recorded a record high of 208,000 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours.

Speaking at the National Assembly on Wednesday, Veran said the new figure is equivalent to two French testing positive every second, a surge fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant.

Veran warned those not vaccinated: "There is really little chance that this time you can escape (COVID-19). The virus is spreading too fast."

France has vaccinated 77 per cent of its population and is rushing out booster shots.

But more than 4 million adults remain unvaccinated.

More than 3,400 COVID-19 patients were hospitalised in intensive care units on Wednesday, an increase by 10 per cent compared to last week.

Veran defended a government plan to allow only the fully vaccinated to enjoy continued access to places such as restaurants, cinemas, theaters, museums and sports arenas.

China Keeps 13 Million in Xi’an Under Strict Lockdown [The New York Times, 30 Dec 2021]

By Vivian Wang and Joy Dong

The severe measures in Xi’an have prompted concern, as residents complain on social media of having trouble ordering food online.

China, racing to control one of its worst outbreaks in a single city since the beginning of the pandemic, has put in place a sweeping lockdown and mass testing drives, making clear that the country has no intention of abandoning its “zero Covid” policy.

Even as a growing number of countries turn away from hard lockdowns, believing their economic and human costs to be too great, the Chinese government has continued to implement harsh restrictions.

The city of Xi’an, in northwestern China, recorded 1,117 infections between Dec. 9 and Dec.
29, according to the government. In response, officials locked down the city of 13 million on Dec. 22, closing schools and most businesses and largely barring people from leaving home.

They ordered daily testing for residents of several districts, setting up nearly 12,000 sampling stations and deploying more than 160,000 workers. Other workers were ordered to spray the city with clouds of disinfectant for a “full-scale” deep cleaning.

Officials have attributed the spike in Xi’an to the Delta variant. China has announced only a handful of Omicron cases.

Xi’an is one of the largest Chinese cities to be locked down since the authorities sealed off Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first discovered, in January 2020. It is a popular tourist destination, known as the home of the ancient Terra Cotta Warriors.

Even in a country where abrupt lockdowns and strict epidemic-control rules have become the norm, the severe measures have prompted concern. On social media, residents have complained of having trouble ordering food online. The hashtag “Grocery shopping in Xi’an is hard” has been viewed 300 million times on Weibo, a social media platform. Censors deleted some of those posts, but officials acknowledged on Wednesday that the escalation of restrictions had contributed to logistics and staffing problems.

The number of infections in Xi’an, though high for China, is minuscule compared with caseloads elsewhere. New York City, for example, recorded nearly 40,000 new cases on Wednesday alone. But China, which is virtually the last country still trying to eliminate the virus rather than live with it, has rejected any suggestion of loosening its controls.

The lockdown comes as Beijing is set to host the Winter Olympics in February amid escalating geopolitical tensions between China and the West. And the Chinese Communist Party is eager to ensure that the Games go smoothly.

Officials elsewhere in China have adopted extreme measures to control the virus, too. In the southern region of Guangxi, the police on Tuesday paraded four people accused of violating epidemic restrictions through the streets, with boards displaying their photos and names. The practice was quickly denounced by state-run media outlets, which noted that such public shaming is illegal in China.

Covid cases in Europe: France brings in face masks as Europe battles Omicron ‘tidal wave’ [iNews, 30 Dec 2021]

By Claire Gilbody-Dickerson

Spain, France, Italy and Denmark have seen record numbers of daily cases since Christmas as the highly transmissable Omicron variant keeps spreading

Countries in Europe are seeing record-high numbers of Covid-19 infections as the highly transmissable Omicron variant races across the continent, prompting governments to consider reimposing restrictions.

Facemasks will be mandatory in France from Friday following a “dizzying” rise in new Covid daily cases, which hit 208,000 on Wednesday, a new national and European record. From Friday, wearing masks will be compulsory for those aged 11 and over except for inside vehicles, cyclists, users of two-wheeled transport like scooters and those doing sport are not required to wear one, Paris police headquarters said in a statement. Paris had previously mandated mask-wearing outdoors in August 2020. Working from home will also be compulsory in the New Year with fines of up to 1000EUR (£838) per employee for companies that refuse.

It comes as the first Covid-19 test kits arrive on supermarket shelves in a big to tackle the spread. At least one hundred sets sold within hours, with one customer, David, telling Euronews: “It’s less time-consuming than queueing up for PCR tests. I don’t know if it’s reliable or not, but maybe at least it gives us an idea.”

“I wouldn’t call Omicron a wave anymore, I would call it a tidal wave,” French Health Minister Olivier Véran told politicians on Wednesday.

Spain was also on track for record figures on Thursday, set to break the 100,760 new infections on Wednesday. The number of patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19, however, is comparatively low at 7.69 per cent, El Mundo reports.

Yet despite the record numbers and long queues outside pharmacies as test demand outstrips supply, the Spanish government has decided to loosen self-isolation rules so people only need to quarantine for seven days rather than 10.

Infections have soared to a record high in Italy with 98,030 new daily cases recorded on Wednesday. That while the weekly average saw a rise of 80 per cent from 177,257 to 320,269 in the seven days between 22-28 December.

But amid concerns over a labour shortage caused by an increasing number of people in quarantine, Italy too has relaxed its rules so that self-isolation for those who have come into contact with a positive case – and who have had a booster – has been scrapped.

Denmark reported 21,403 new cases on Thursday, down from 23,228 on Wednesday, which was a 44 per cent increase on the previous record, according to statistics by Statens Serum Institut.

Restrictions were reintroduced last week to stem the soaring number of infections, including a negative test for all those travelling to the country, regardless of their vaccination status.

That while an estimated 600 people arriving from Denmark were denied entry in Sweden as they failed to comply with the newly introduced requirement, effective on Wednesday, to show a negative test. The rule, however, does not apply to Swedish nationals and residents.

Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) of virology warned there may be a “sudden” increase in infections due to the Omicron variant and it’s difficult to see the true scale of the problem.

In the Netherlands, which is halfway through its tight lockdown where all non-essential businesses are shut, Omicron has become the dominant variant, accounting for 80 per cent of cases. A total of 14,868 new cases were reported on Thursday. The lockdown, which was imposed on 19 December, will last till 14 January.

The country is also considering three additional rounds of boosters, with two planned for 2022 and one in 2023. So far, about 24 per cent of the adult population has received a booster jab in the Netherlands. The aim is to get every adult with a third jab by 1 February, NL reports.

Portugal reported a new record number of cases for the third consecutive day, with another 28,659 positives along with sixteen more deaths. In the last three days, the Portuguese authorities have registered about 72,700 new cases.

Health Minister Marta Temido warned on Tuesday that the country could reach as many as 37,000 daily cases in the first week of January, although recently imposed restrictions should have a dampening effect.

Before Christmas, the government ordered nightclubs and bars to close and told people to work from home for at least two weeks.

Omicron has been spreading at a much faster rate than any other variant, but early data shows the risk of hospitalisation due to severe illness is reduced.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) director general, nonetheless warned: “Delta and Omicron are now twin threats driving up cases to record numbers, leading to spikes in hospitalisation and deaths.

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

Covid: France suspends transit ban for UK nationals during Christmas period [BBC News, 30 Dec 2021]

UK nationals will be allowed to travel through France if they are going to their home in an EU country during the festive period.

France suspended its Covid restriction after UK travellers faced difficulties reaching their country of residence.

Eurotunnel, which had earlier issued warnings to customers, said it was "delighted" by the move.

People from the UK are still largely banned from going to France unless they have a compelling reason.

Earlier this month, French ministers tightened travel rules for the UK, citing concerns about the spread of the Omicron variant.

Since 18 December, British citizens have needed an essential reason to travel to France, with some exemptions in place.

It had been thought that exemptions covered those crossing France in order to get to their home in another EU country.

However on Wednesday, both P&O and Eurotunnel said the French government had issued new rules meaning British people could "no longer transit France by road to reach their country of residence in the EU" unless they hold French residency.

The British government said it was "urgently" seeking clarification about any new restrictions that would affect UK nationals.

In response, the French government insisted that UK nationals who reside in another EU country are deemed to be "third country nationals" and are therefore not allowed to cross France to get home under the current Covid rules.

However, it noted that "a large number of British nationals residing in an EU country have travelled in good faith to the UK for the festive season and are experiencing difficulties in reaching their country of residence".

"Faced with this situation, instructions of tolerance have been sent to police officers at the borders with the United Kingdom, in order to allow these nationals to transit through France to reach their residence in a country of the European Union".

The French Ministry of the Interior added that, unlike UK citizens, EU nationals coming from the UK to their residence in the EU were not impacted by the transit ban and were free to travel through France.

Eurotunnel, the company which runs vehicle-carrying trains between Dover and Calais, said it was "delighted that the French government has responded positively to its requests for flexibility in travel rules".

On Twitter, the company said the flexibility for passengers would be "subject to their [initial] journey to the UK being completed before 28 Dec 2021".

The confusion over travel rules comes as France is experiencing record numbers of infections, with over 200,000 positive cases reported on Wednesday.

On the same day, the UK also saw cases jump to a record high of 183,000 people testing positive.

France tightens COVID rules, makes masks mandatory outdoors in Paris [POLITICO Europe, 30 Dec 2021]

The French government rolled out new restrictions in an effort to stop the spread of the Omicron variant.

PARIS — Masks will be mandatory outdoors in the French capital starting Friday, one of several new restrictions put in place to slow down the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

Paris police announced Wednesday that people aged 11 and over will be required to wear masks outdoors and in all public areas. Some exceptions are allowed, including for people taking exercise.

Prime Minister Jean Castex detailed earlier this week a series of new restrictions, including mandatory working from home for at least three days a week starting early January.
Companies that are found in breach of this rule could be fined up to €50,000, Labor Minister Elisabeth Borne said Thursday.

The government is expected to announce new quarantine rules by the end of the week.

France is ramping up vaccination efforts, with people now eligible for a booster shot just three months after getting their last injection.

Outside gatherings will be limited to 5,000 but the government hasn't ruled on whether campaign events for the April presidential election will be subjected to such limits. Castex said a committee gathering all political parties would be assembled in the new year to discuss and define specific rules.

France also tightened restrictions before Christmas on travel from the U.K., with confusion reigning as to whether British nationals residing in the EU can travel via France.

Corona Third Wave In Mumbai Has Started: Maharashtra COVID Task Force Member Confirms [India.com, 30 Dec 2021]

by Manmath Nayak

COVID Third Wave Latest Update: Giving details, Maharashtra Covid Task Force member Dr Shashank Joshi said the rise in cases is mainly driven by Omicron variant.

COVID Third Wave Latest News Today: On a day when Mumbai reported 2,510 COVID cases and one death, a Maharashtra Covid Task Force member on Wednesday expressed concern and said the COVID third wave in Mumbai has already started. Saying that it is a cause for concern and caution, he however added that there’s no need to panic.

Speaking to Indian Today, Dr Shashank Joshi, member of Maharashtra Covid Task Force, said that the doubling rate is four days and all cases are mild and hospital infrastructure isn’t overwhelmed.

Giving further details he added that number of cases are huge but the state can still deal with it as the rise in cases is driven by Omicron.

He also stated that the genome sequencing will show Omicron in 80% of the cases and this is not Delta for sure. However, other experts stated that India may see an Omicron fall in six weeks from now.

Corona cases in Mumbai: The development comes as Mumbai on Tuesday witnessed 1,377 cases, and Wednesday’s figure was a jump by over 80 per cent. On May 8, Mumbai had seen 2,678 coronavirus cases when the second wave of the pandemic was at its peak.

Maharashtra Omicron cases: On the other hand, Maharashtra on Wednesday recorded a spurt in new COVID cases at 3,900, including 85 of Omicron, with the daily count rising by 1,728 from a day before. With the addition of 3,900 cases, which were detected after 1,23,248 coronavirus tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, the statewide infection count shot up to 66,65,386, the health department said.

Of the 85 cases of the Omicron in the state, 47 patients have been reported by the National Institute of Virology (NIV) – (where samples were sent for genome sequencing) and 38 by the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER).

Rajesh Tope expresses concern: Health Minister Rajesh Tope expressed concern over the situation and said in view of the rising coronavirus cases, the existing curbs have to be observed strictly at parties and other public events. He said in the last eight to 10 days, the active cases in the state stood in the range of 5,000 to 6,000.

Aaditya urges people not to panic: State Tourism minister Aaditya Thackeray urged people not to panic, but exercise extreme caution in the wake sharp rise in coronavirus cases in Mumbai and stressed on vaccination and widespread use of face masks.

BMC imposes curbs on UAE returnees: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Wednesday evening imposed fresh curbs on air passengers from UAE and said the passengers arriving in Mumbai from the United Arab Emirates will have to undergo an RT-PCR test as well as mandatory 7-day home quarantine. The decision was taken after BMC Commissioner IS Chahal chaired a virtual meeting with civic officials, deans and medical superintendents of hospitals.

Chahal has also asked officials to make separate arrangements of 500 beds each at NESCO and BKC Jumbo COVID-19 centres to quarantine international travelers who have no symptoms and do not need medical treatment, it said, adding that travelers ready to pay will be permitted to stay in the hotels.

New Coronavirus News from 29 Dec 2021

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

By Chantal Da Silva

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DEC. 28, 202103:19

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By MEG WINGERTER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I just want to go home’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the exponential growth in case numbers is causing alarm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Marc Santora

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to Know

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Sigal Samuel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Erin Doherty

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Rob Picheta

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Christian W

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Coronavirus News from 28 Dec 2021

Is One Health approach the gateway towards pandemic preparedness? [Mangalorean.com, 28 Dec 2021]

BY Shobha Shukla & Bobby Ramakant

Is One Health Approach The Gateway Towards Pandemic Preparedness?
Covid pandemic is a grim reminder of what can go wrong when we do not work with an integrated “One Health” approach to human health, animal health, food system and climate.
The critical link between these sectors has only deepened over the years. But will our public health approach pass the litmus test of effective collaboration with other health and non-health sectors? Preventing future pandemics start with recognising links between human health, animal health, food system and climate, and ensuring our health response is socially just and ecologically sustainable.

One Health approach addresses shared health threats by recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, food systems, and the environment. Undoubtedly, the One Health approach has become critically important than ever before as we navigate the Covid pandemic.

“60% of emerging infectious diseases in humans have an animal origin, and 72% of these are coming from wildlife. So, with increasing interaction at the human-animal-ecosystem interface we really need to have a more holistic approach in managing health problems” said Dr Ronello C Abila, Subregional representative for Southeast Asia, World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) based in Bangkok, Thailand.

“We can only prevent future pandemics with an integrated One Health approach to public health, animal health and the environment we share”, had said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) earlier this year. More importantly, Dr Tedros added: “We cannot protect human health without considering the impact of human activities that disrupt ecosystems, encroach on habitats, and further drive climate change”. These activities include pollution, large-scale deforestation, intensified livestock production and the misuse of antimicrobials, along with how the world produces, consumes and trades food.

Local Actions For Global Goals
Dr Tedros had also said that “to keep people safe, One Health must be translated into local-level systems.”

That is why, local leaders including Mayors, Members of Parliament, Governors, and other government officials and public health experts from around 80 cities of over a dozen countries in Asia and the Pacific endorsed a Declaration rooted in One Health approach, at the 6th Asia Pacific Summit of Mayors (6th APCAT Summit), organised by Asia Pacific Cities Alliance for Health and Development, said Dr Tara Singh Bam, Asia Pacific Director of International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union).

“The local government plays a significant role in the success of one health implementation on the ground. Mayors play a very important role at the local level. OIE has been working with national governments and this is the first time I am talking to the Mayors who are working on the ground. Hopefully, we could also reach out on the implementation of one health approach for controlling future pandemics” rightly said Dr Ronello C Abila of OIE.

Coronavirus, Animals And Humans
One of the lessons learned from Covid is that emerging zoonotic infectious diseases (animal diseases that can spread to humans) are here to stay and fighting new disease threats such as Covid, Ebola, and Zika warrants One Health collaboration across human, animal, and environmental health organizations.

“More than 400 animals from 29 countries have been reported infected with coronavirus, including nearly 300 animals, as well as thousands of mink in mink farms in the USA. The virus has infected companion, wildlife, zoo and production animals, including cats, dogs, tigers, lions, gorillas, white-tailed deer, mink, and others” said Professor Tjandra Yoga Aditama, former Director-General (Disease Control), Ministry of Health, Indonesia, and former Director (communicable disease control), of the WHO for Southeast Asia region.

“With Covid, the main source is coming from coronavirus in bats but it is yet to be ascertained what is the intermediate host before infection came to humans – this is still under investigation. This is unlike the first SARS epidemic of 2003 where we know that civet bat was the intermediate host” shared Dr Ronello C Abila of OIE.

Bird Flu Epidemic Forced Us All To Recognise One Health Approach
One Health approach got major support in wake of zoonotic influenza or bird flu. The bird flue epidemic had indeed triggered the alarm globally for lack of pandemic preparedness. “That is why all the countries had adopted One Health approach during the ministerial meeting of 2008” said Dr Ronello C Abila.

“The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) works closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to prevent, detect, control and eliminate health threats. We reaffirmed this commitment by signing the memorandum of understanding to strengthen long-standing partnership in May 2018. A formal alliance helps facilitates putting the One Health vision into practice. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) joined the tripartite alliance in November 2020 and we now call it tripartite + UNEP” said Dr Abila.

Almost nine years before Covid struck us, tripartite alliance of OIE, WHO and FAO had met in Mexico City in November 2011 to address health risks at the human-animal and environment interface. One important outcome of this meet was commitment for demonstrating how One Health approach can be applied at the global, regional, national and field level on three issues: rabies, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and zoonotic influenza.

“In response to the declaration coming from the global level, in Asia we started working from 2010 onwards with the ministries of health, agriculture, and environment on how to overcome zoonosis (animal diseases infecting humans) in context of avian influenza, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and rabies”, said Dr Ronello C Abila.

Last month, like every recent year OIE, WHO, FAO and UNEP, united with several other governments and agencies worldwide to observe World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) from 18 to 24 November 2021. CNS (Citizen News Service) spoke to Dr Haileyesus Getahun, WHO Director of the Tripartite Joint Secretariat on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and WHO Director of the AMR Global Coordination Department. Dr Haileyesus Getahun calls AMR a humanmade problem because “antimicrobials are shared between humans, animals and plants. And we are overusing and misusing them in all these three spheres.”

“We must be prudent and responsible in using antimicrobials, particularly antibiotics. While all antimicrobials are important, special attention must be given to antibiotics, because they are the backbone of our health system in tackling a wide range of bacterial infections. There is also evidence that overuse and misuse of antibiotics in agriculture and animal husbandry can result in drug-resistant bacteria being transferred to human beings. We have to work together with all the sectors to preserve antibiotics for the sake of human and animal health” added Dr Haileyesus Getahun.

Indonesia As President Of G20
Indonesia is the President of G20 since December 2021 onwards. Last G20 meeting of Ministers of health held in 2021 had reaffirmed the urgent need to address global helth under a One Health approach, said Professor Tjandra Yoga Aditama.

“Food safety is an important issue for Asia Pacific, a region with highly diverse food culture and production systems. Veterinary services are responsible for controlling pathogens in animals and work with numerous other stakeholders involved in food systems. They also play a key role in the investigation of, and response to, food borne disease outbreaks which may be attributable to or involve animal products including the implementation of control measures” said Prof Aditama.

We are reminded of the old-gold Chinese proverb, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” Second best time to accelerate progress in translating promises on One Health approach into reality is now. No time to die!

WHO warns of Omicron overload as France reports record of nearly 180,000 Covid cases [FRANCE 24 English, 28 Dec 2021]

The WHO warned Tuesday that the Omicron coronavirus variant could lead to overwhelmed healthcare systems even though early studies suggest it sparks milder disease, as countries reintroduced tough restrictions to stamp out Covid-19 surges and France reported a new record number of cases.

Covid-19 surges have wreaked havoc around the world, forcing many nations to make tough choices between economically punishing restrictions and controlling the spread of the virus.
France reported a record high of 179,807 new confirmed cases in a 24-hour period on Tuesday, by far the highest number since the start of the pandemic.

The previous record of 104,611 was set on Saturday.

To quell the rising numbers, the country also ordered companies to have employees work from home at least three days a week.

The United States has halved the isolation period for asymptomatic cases to try and limit disruption.

Contact restrictions were in place in Germany for the second year in a row heading into the New Year, as Europe's biggest economy shuttered nightclubs and forced sports competitions behind closed doors.

Despite facing a much smaller outbreak compared with global virus hotspots, China has not relaxed its "zero Covid" strategy, imposing stay-at-home orders in many parts of the city of Yan'an.

The hundreds of thousands of affected residents there joined the 13 million people in the city of Xi'an, who entered a sixth day of home confinement as China battled its highest daily case numbers in 21 months.

China expands lockdowns as Covid cases climb
01:35
"I'm about to be starved to death," wrote one Xi'an resident on the Twitter-like Weibo platform.
"There's no food, my housing compound won't let me out, and I'm about to run out of instant noodles... please help!"

Many Xi'an residents have similarly complained on social media about the restrictions, which include a ban on driving and allowing only one member of a household to go outside for groceries every three days.

This lockdown is the most sweeping in China since the similar-sized city of Wuhan was cut off from the world in the early days of the pandemic.

'Widespread disruption'
The highly transmissible Omicron variant has propelled the surges in many countries, with the Netherlands and Switzerland both saying Tuesday that it has become the dominant strain in their countries.

France, Britain, Greece and Portugal all reported record daily case numbers on Tuesday.
The WHO warned against complacency even though preliminary findings suggest Omicron causes milder disease.

Despite the studies, Omicron's rapid growth "will still result in large numbers of hospitalisations, particularly amongst unvaccinated groups, and cause widespread disruption to health systems and other critical services", warned WHO Europe's Covid Incident Manager Catherine Smallwood.

To hold back the tide, European nations brought back curbs with painful economic and social consequences.

Finland on Tuesday said it would bar unvaccinated foreign travellers from entering. Only residents, essential workers or diplomats will be exempt.

The Nordic country, like Sweden, had begun requiring negative tests for incoming non-resident travellers from Tuesday, a day after Denmark – which currently has the world's highest rate of infection per capita – applied the same measure.

In Germany, private gatherings are now limited to 10 vaccinated people – or two households where any unvaccinated people are present – and nightclubs have been closed. All sports competitions will now be held behind closed doors.

But a Belgian court thwarted Prime Minister Alexander De Croo's plans to introduce further restrictions by suspending an order closing entertainment venues.

Travel chaos
Beyond social strife, the pandemic has been punishing economically, in particular for sectors like travel.

Some 11,500 flights have been scrapped worldwide since Friday, and tens of thousands more delayed, during one of the year's busiest travel periods.

Multiple airlines have blamed staffing shortages caused by spikes of Omicron cases.

The surge in the US has been fuelled by the Omicron variant, as well as large pockets of unvaccinated residents and a lack of access to quick and easy testing.

But US President Joe Biden offered some respite to the travel sector on Tuesday by announcing an end to a travel ban on eight southern African countries imposed in response to the emergence of Omicron.

Biden on Monday said some US hospitals could be "overrun" but that the country was generally well prepared.

He stressed that Omicron would not have the same impact as the initial Covid outbreak or the Delta variant surge this year.

In an effort to prevent mass labour shortages during the surge, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday cut the isolation period for asymptomatic cases from 10 to five days.

FOCUS: China's COVID-19 policy keeps Japanese families apart before Olympics [Kyodo News Plus, 28 Dec 2021]

By Tomoyuki Tachikawa

As China has been bolstering its "zero corona" policy ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics, many Japanese workers in the capital, who have not returned to their home country for around two years, have remained cut off from their families.

While urging citizens in the city to refrain from traveling to other regions, the Beijing government has tightly restricted the entry of accompanying family members of Japanese employees in a bid to prevent the intrusion of the novel coronavirus.

Even if such families can enter China, they must be quarantined at a designated facility for 21 days upon arrival in a city other than Beijing in the nation, with all direct flights between Japan and the capital suspended since March 2020.

Quarantined people are completely prohibited by the health authorities from stepping out of their room, making families with small children, who are practically bursting at the seams to play outdoors, shy away from visiting China.

"In autumn, the Beijing government resumed accepting applications for invitation letters required for accompanying family members to obtain visas. We were very happy to hear that," said Shinya Tanaka, a Japanese worker for a major trading house.

"The process, however, was closed immediately after infections were detected in Beijing in October and invitation letters for my wife and child ended up not being issued. I haven't met my family for nearly two years," the 38-year-old man said.

"Unfortunately, we've become nothing short of victims of the Beijing Olympics. I miss my family very much," he added.

A 39-year-old Japanese employee for Sony Corp. in Beijing, who has lived separately from his family since January 2020, also said, "My wife has been stressed to the max because she has raised two children alone at a rental apartment in Japan for about two years."

"I really want to invite my family to China as soon as possible, but there's no way to get a nod from the Beijing government. I think a reunion with my family won't be realized at least until the end of the Beijing Olympics" slated for February, he said.

This then 42-year-old reporter, meanwhile, was approved under specific conditions by the Chinese Foreign Ministry to bring my family to Beijing from Tokyo. We had been first quarantined together at a hotel in China's northeastern port city of Dalian in mid-October.

A Beijing resident who was obliged to have a negative certificate of a PCR test taken within 24 hours before entering Dalian, I headed to the city directly from the capital by express train on Oct. 13, without briefly returning to Japan.

On the same day, my wife and 4-year-old son arrived in Dalian by airplane from Narita airport near Tokyo. The three of us reunited for the first time in one year and seven months at the designated quarantine hotel located near the sea in the outskirts of the city.

My wife said, "The hotel room we stayed in Dalian was clean, large and comfortable. We had beautiful scenery. The meals provided by the hotel three times a day, many of which were Japanese food, were delicious. My son and I had enjoyed quarantine life at first."

"We spent time mostly playing with toys, reading books, watching television and playing sports inside the room, but around one week after our quarantine started, I became cranky due to the stress that I was not able to go out at all," she said.

"My son also got a tic disorder, often caused by psychological factors such as anxiety.

Although he did not complain about the quarantine, he must have felt highly stressed. He now says he does not want to experience quarantine ever again," she added.

After being forced to be isolated from the outside world for two weeks, we left Dalian for Shanghai, where people completing a 14-day quarantine in another area in China are allowed to go out if needed. We stayed there for one week before entering Beijing.

Naoki Sasaki, a 43-year-old Japanese worker for an electronics maker, said, "Once hearing such a story, I don't think my family can tolerate a severe quarantine in China. I want to meet with my wife and sons, but I've become more reluctant to invite them to Beijing."

Fears are also growing that the Beijing government may extend the mandatory quarantine period from 21 days, given that it has been trying to strengthen anti-virus measures after the first infection with the Omicron variant was confirmed in the mainland in December.

Since late October, when COVID-19 cases increased in Beijing after a week-long national holiday early in the month, the municipal authorities have called for residents including Japanese not to move out of the capital unless necessary.

In addition, the local government has banned people in regions where new infections have been identified from entering Beijing, while compelling visitors to the city to have a negative certificate of a PCR test taken within 48 hours.

When the coronavirus raged in Dalian in November, all flights between the city and Beijing were temporarily suspended, impeding some of those who had already finished a 21-day quarantine from reaching the capital.

"With the Omicron variant spreading globally, the Beijing authorities will of course accelerate efforts to curb the outbreak. In the worst-case scenario, the quarantine period might be extended," said Kiyoshi Yamada, a 45-year-old Japanese employee of a carmaker.

"There's also a rumor that the Chinese government will continue its zero corona policy until the end of the Communist Party's once-every-five-years congress scheduled to be held in Beijing in fall 2022. I'm fed up," he said.

"I think my company may recall me to Japan by the end of 2022. I've almost given up inviting my family to Beijing during my stay in China," he said with a sigh.

Many Japanese workers in Beijing still live alone, as their family members, who evacuated from China amid the epidemic in early 2020, have been stranded in their home country as the government under President Xi Jinping has limited the entry of foreigners.

New Coronavirus News from 27 Dec 2021

Global Covid Crackdowns: France, Germany, Greece Announce New Restrictions, UK, Australia Won’t (Yet) [Forbes, 27 Dec 2021]

By Zachary Snowdon Smith

TOPLINE

With the arrival of the more infectious, but possibly less deadly, coronavirus omicron variant, national governments have been forced to make tough calls on whether to loosen or tighten rules for the holidays, with France limiting public gatherings as the UK promises no new restrictions for New Year’s Eve.

KEY FACTS
Monday, French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced that, until January 17, public gatherings will be limited to 2,000 people indoors and 5,000 people outdoors and that working from home will be mandatory for three days per week where possible, France 24 reported.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the UK would impose no new Covid-19 restrictions before the new year, while Health Secretary Sajid Javid urged the public to voluntarily undertake measures like celebrating outdoors or in a well-ventilated indoor space, the Guardian reported.

From January 3-16, the Greek government will require that bars and restaurants close by midnight, that tables be limited to six seated customers and that entertainment venues allow no standing customers, otherwise the government will “ban music” at those venues, Reuters reported.

Though Australia recorded its first death due to omicron Monday, health officials decided not to implement new restrictions, saying that surges in omicron infections haven’t caused strain on hospitals, Reuters reported.

Germany limited private gatherings for vaccinated people to a maximum of 10 and closed clubs and discos, while the city of Hamburg imposed a 1 a.m. curfew for New Year’s Eve, Reuters reported.

In Canada, response to omicron has varied from region to region, with British Columbia banning all organized indoor gatherings—including New Year’s Eve parties, weddings and funerals— from December 23 to January 18, while Sasketchawan’s current public health order, extending to the end of January, merely requires that people attending indoor public gatherings wear masks, CTV News reported.

KEY BACKGROUND
The coronavirus omicron variant has quickly become the dominant variant in many parts of the world, accounting for 73.2% of cases in the U.S. and leading to an undersupply of a Covid treatment most successful against omicron. Researchers working independently in England, Scotland and South Africa have found omicron may be less likely to send people to hospitals, the New York Times reported. Nonetheless, in Greece, the emergence of omicron has coincided with a rise in hospitalizations large enough to prompt the government to consider asking private hospitals for support, Reuters reported.

KEY QUOTE
“Corona won’t take a Christmas break,” German chancellor Olaf Scholz remarked while announcing increased public health restrictions.

BIG NUMBER
9,284. That’s how many Covid-19 cases Greece recorded Monday, setting a new record for the country.

Fauci: US should consider vaccine mandate for domestic air travel [The Detroit News, 27 Dec 2021]

By ZEKE MILLER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said Monday the nation should consider a vaccination mandate for domestic air travel, signaling a potential embrace of an idea the Biden administration has previously eschewed, as COVID-19 cases spike.

Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief science adviser on the pandemic response, said such a mandate might drive up the nation’s lagging vaccination rate as well as confer stronger protection on flights, for which federal regulations require all those age 2 and older to wear a mask.

“When you make vaccination a requirement, that’s another incentive to get more people vaccinated,” Fauci told MSNBC. “If you want to do that with domestic flights, I think that’s something that seriously should be considered.”

The Biden administration has thus far balked at imposing a vaccination requirement for domestic air travel. Two officials said Biden’s science advisers have yet to make a formal recommendation for such a requirement to the president.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said a vaccine mandate on planes could trigger a host of logistical and legal concerns.

The U.S. currently mandates that most foreign nationals traveling to the U.S. be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, though citizens and permanent residents only need to show proof of a negative test taken within a day of boarding.

Federal rules don’t require people travelling by air within the U.S. to show a negative test.
Hawaii requires travelers to test or show proof of vaccination to avoid a mandatory quarantine.
Biden did not respond to questions on whether he was considering implementing a domestic air travel vaccination requirement, but he told reporters the subject was discussed on a call with the nation’s governors Monday morning.

“They asked Dr. Fauci some more questions about everything from whether or not he thought he was going to move to test at home — I mean, on air flights and that kind of thing,” Biden said of the call before departing the White House for his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
During the virtual meeting with governors, Biden pledged the full support of the federal government to states facing surges in COVID-19 cases from the more-transmissible omicron variant and a run on at-home tests that dominated headlines over the holiday season.

“My message is: If you need something, say something, and we’re going to have your back any way we can,” Biden said. He acknowledged long lines and chaotic scenes as Americans sought out testing amid the case surge and as they looked to safely gather with family and friends over the holiday.

“Seeing how tough it was for some folks to get a test this weekend shows that we have more work to do,” he said. He referenced his administration’s plan to make 500 million rapid tests available to Americans beginning next month through an as-yet-to-be-developed website.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, the National Governors Association chairman, raised concerns Biden’s plan could get in the way of state efforts to boost supply of tests.

“That dries up the supply chain for what we might offer as governors,” he said, saying the lack of supply “has become a real challenge.”

Biden assured Hutchinson that the federal effort won’t interfere with state actions. “This gets solved at the state level,” he said.

A White House official said the new tests would come from new manufacturing capacity and wouldn’t interfere with existing supply chains.

Earlier this year the White House explored a domestic vaccination requirement for flights, or one requiring either vaccination or proof of negative test. But officials have not been eager to mandate vaccination for domestic air travel because they expected it to face immediate legal challenges, mitigating its potential effectiveness as a tool to drive up vaccinations.

Pressed last week on why Biden had not mandated vaccinations for domestic air travel, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told MSNBC that “we know that masking can be, is, very effective on airplanes.”

“We also know that putting in place that additional restriction might delay flights, might have additional implications,” she added. “We would do it, though, if the health impact was overwhelming. So we rely always on the advice of our health and medical experts. That isn’t a step at this point that they had determined we need to take.”

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show more than 241 million Americans, about 77% of the eligible population age 5 and over, have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. Officials believe, though, that there is some overcount in the figures due to record-keeping errors in the administration of booster shots.

Since the summer, the Biden administration has embraced various vaccination requirements as a way to get unvaccinated Americans to roll up their sleeves. It has instituted requirements that federal workers, federal contractors and those who work in health care get their shots, and that employers with 100 or more employees institute vaccination-or-testing requirements for their workers.

Those vaccination requirements have been mired in legal wrangling, with the Supreme Court set to hear arguments Jan. 7 in cases seeking to overturn them.

New Coronavirus News from 24 Dec 2021

New York state reports over 44,000 positive COVID-19 cases [Spectrum News NY1, 24 Dec 2021]

BY FARAZ TOOR

New York state has once again set a record for new daily COVID-19 cases, now passing the 40,000 mark as the omicron variant spreads.

The state reported 44,431 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, Gov. Kathy Hochul's office announced Friday. The previous record, set on Thursday, was 38,835, which was substantially higher than the previous record of 28,942 that was set Wednesday.

Across the state, 148 people per 100,000 have tested positive for the virus on a seven-day average, according to state data, up from 116 two days earlier.

In New York City, 204 residents out of every 100,000 people tested positive Thursday, up from the seven-day average of 176 a day earlier. In upstate New York, the Southern Tier had the highest figure at 91 cases per 100,000 people, down from 99 on Wednesday.

The state's seven-day average positivity rate is now 10.2 percent. New York's City's rate is the same, according to the state. Across the state, 359,191 test results were reported in the last 24 hours.

There are currently 4,744 New Yorkers in the hospital, up from 4,534 on Wednesday, but the state's hospitalization rate has not increased at a rate commensurate with the surge in positive cases.

"Thanks to vaccines and boosters, our fight against the pandemic is going better than last Christmas but we still must ensure we're taking the proper precautions to keep each other safe this holiday season," Hochul said in a statement. "Get vaccinated, get the booster if you're already vaccinated, and make sure to mask up and wash your hands—especially if you're visiting elderly loved ones. Take care to protect your most vulnerable loved ones who join you around the dinner table this weekend, and let's make sure we're enjoying a healthy Christmas and happy holiday season."

Health care facilities in New York reported 69 new COVID-19-related deaths, up from 63 the day before, according to the state.

New Coronavirus News from 25 Dec 2021

Omicron Reported in Japan's Fukuoka; France's COVID-19 Infections Top 100,000 [VOA News, 25 Dec 2021]

TOKYO/PARIS —

Japan's Fukuoka prefecture has confirmed its first infection with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, its governor Seitaro Hattori said Saturday.

The case was a result of possible community transmission as the infection route was unclear, Hattori told a news conference.

France recorded a record high of 104,611 COVID-19 infections Saturday, breaking the 100,000 threshold for the first time since the pandemic began as the omicron variant continued its rapid spread.

Health authorities said the number of COVID patients in intensive care went up by 28 to 3,282.

In the meantime, Israel has ordered 100,000 units of Pfizer Inc's anti-viral COVID 19 pill Paxlovid for people aged 12 and older at risk of severe illness, an Israeli official said on Saturday, confirming a television report.

Channel 12 TV said Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett agreed the deal in a phone conversation with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. There was no immediate confirmation from the company.

The first oral and at home treatment for COVID-19, Paxlovid was nearly 90% effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths in patients at high risk of severe illness, according to data from Pfizer's clinical trial. Recent lab data suggests the drug retains effectiveness against the Omicron variant, it said.

New Coronavirus News from 26 Dec 2021

Surging COVID cases make for another subdued Christmas around the world [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 26 Dec 2021]

BY NICOLE WINFIELD

ROME — Christians around the world celebrated their second COVID-19 Christmas as surging infections in many countries overwhelmed hospitals, canceled flights and curbed religious observances Saturday, a point in the pandemic when coronavirus vaccines were more available than ever.

While some countries in Asia imposed restrictions to try to contain the highly contagious omicron variant, governments in Europe and elsewhere preached common sense, despite reporting record-high daily cases this week, advising their citizens to use masks and voluntarily limit the size of holiday gatherings.

The head of intensive care at a hospital in Marseille, France, said most of the COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated, while his staff members are exhausted or can’t work because they are infected.

“We’re sick of this,” Dr. Julien Carvelli, the ICU chief at Marseille’s La Timone Hospital, as his team spent another Christmas Eve tending to COVID-19 patients on breathing machines.
“We’re afraid we won’t have enough space.”

Thousands of people across England got a vaccine booster shot for Christmas as new cases in Britain hit another daily record of 122,186. Dr. Emily Lawson, the head of the National Health Service’s vaccination program, thanked volunteers for being on hand for the holiday.

Pope Francis used his Christmas address to pray for some of those vaccines to reach the poorest countries. While wealthy countries have inoculated as much as 90% of their adult populations, only 8.9% of Africa’s people are fully jabbed, making it the world’s least-vaccinated continent.

“Grant health to the infirm and inspire all men and women of good will to seek the best ways possible to overcome the current health crisis and its effects,” Francis said from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica. “Open hearts to ensure that necessary medical care — and vaccines in particular — are provided to those peoples who need them most.”

Only a few thousand well-wishers turned out for Francis’ noontime address and blessing, but even that was better than last year, when Italy’s Christmas lockdown forced the pope indoors for the annual “Urbi et Orbi” (To the city and the world) speech.

At a reception center for asylum-seekers on the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, Patricia Etoh, a Catholic from Cameroon, said she did not have any special plans because it just did not feel like Christmas without her 6-year-old child, who she had to leave behind.
But she added: “We’re grateful, we’re alive, and when we’re alive, there’s hope.”

On the other side of the globe, hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines, Asia’s largest Roman Catholic nation, spent Christmas without homes, electricity, or adequate food and water after a powerful typhoon left at least 375 people dead last week and devastated mostly central island provinces.

Gov. Arthur Yap of hard-hit Bohol province, where more than 100 people died in the typhoon and about 150,000 houses were damaged or destroyed, asked foreign aid agencies to help provide temporary shelters and water-filtration systems to supplement Philippine government aid.
“There is overwhelming fear. There are no gifts. There were no Christmas Eve dinners. There is none of that today,” Yap told The Associated Press.

Yap said he was happy that many Filipinos could celebrate Christmas more safely after COVID-19 cases dropped, but he pleaded: “Please don’t forget us.”

In South Korea, social distancing rules required churches to limit worshippers to 70% of seating capacity, and service attendees had to be fully vaccinated.

South Korea has been grappling with soaring infections and deaths since it significantly eased its virus curbs in early November as part of efforts to return to pre-pandemic normalcy. The country was eventually forced to restore its toughest distancing guidelines, including a four-person limit on social gatherings and a 9 p.m. curfew for restaurants and cafes.

Australia also had a Christmas with a surge of COVID-19 cases, its worst of the pandemic, which forced states to reinstate mask mandates and other measures.

Christmas celebrations were subdued in much of India, with more decorations than crowds: Authorities reintroduced nighttime curfews and restrictions on gatherings of more than five people in big cities like New Delhi and Mumbai. People attended midnight Mass in Mumbai and elsewhere, but in smaller numbers.

Adding to the customary stress of holiday travel, airlines around the world canceled hundreds of flights as the omicron variant jumbled schedules and reduced staffing levels.

According to FlightAware, more than 3,900 flights scheduled for Friday and Saturday were canceled, with close to half of them involving Chinese airlines. About 30% of affected flights — more than 1,100 — were to, from or within the United States.

The cancellations still represented a small fraction of global flights. FlightAware says it tracked more than 100,000 arrivals in 24 hours.

As the pandemic spread around the world the past two years, New Zealand used its isolation to its advantage. Border controls kept the worst of the virus at bay. By this Christmas, New Zealand had recorded 50 deaths in a population of 5.5 million.

New Zealanders enjoyed the holiday in the warmth of midsummer with few restrictions. Their country has one of the world’s most vaccinated populations, with 95% of adults having had at least one dose. The country also is one of the few largely untouched by omicron.

But that success has come at a cost. There were empty chairs at some family tables this holiday season because some New Zealanders living and working overseas were not able to return home due to isolation and quarantine requirements

On Fiji, many in the deeply religious nation will celebrate Christmas at traditional church services and family gatherings. The Pacific island has an ongoing outbreak and a pandemic death toll of almost 700, but 92% of the adult population is fully vaccinated.

Health Secretary James Fong, in a Christmas message, urged Fijians to “please celebrate wisely.”

In remote Macuata province, residents of four villages received a special Christmas gift: Electricity was connected to their villages for the first time.

France Reports Record 100000 New Covid Cases as Omicron Rages [Bloomberg, 26 Dec 2021]

By Samy Adghirni

France reported a daily record of more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases as President Emmanuel Macron weighs measures to contain the fast-spreading omicron variant.

Covid-19 cases totaled 104,611 on Saturday, according to data from the public health office, topping the 94,124 infections logged the previous day. The country reported 84 deaths.

Macron, who is widely expected to seek a second term in April’s election, will convene his health defense council on Monday to discuss the coronavirus. The government intends to adopt a system requiring people to be fully vaccinated to enter bars, restaurants and cultural venues starting as soon as early January to help slow the spread, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said Tuesday.

Health Minister Olivier Veran predicted earlier this week that the omicron strain will become dominant in France during the period from Christmas to New Year’s Day. Omicron has also driven cases to records in the U.K. and Italy.

More than 16,000 people are currently hospitalized for Covid in France, including some 3,300 in intensive care. There have been more than 122,500 deaths.

France reported a daily record of more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases as the government considers measures including requiring people to be fully vaccinated to enter bars, restaurants and cultural venues.

We're tracking the latest on the coronavirus outbreak and the global response. Sign up here for our daily newsletter on what you need to know.

French Covid-19 infections hit a record for a second straight day as the fast-spreading omicron variant takes hold in much of Europe.

U.S. airlines, chiefly United Airlines Holdings Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc., scrapped hundreds of flights for the holiday weekend because of personnel shortages linked to a spike in omicron cases as well as some bad weather.

The U.S. announced it would lift travel curbs imposed on several southern African countries because the Biden administration doesn’t think travelers from there will have a significant effect on the U.S. tally.

New Coronavirus News from 23 Dec 2021

This Lockdown In China Is Biggest Since Covid Broke Out In Wuhan [NDTV, 23 Dec 2021]

The rising number of COVID-19 cases underscores the challenge China faces at a time of increased holiday travel and preparation for the winter Olympic Games.

China locked down the western city of Xi'an on Thursday to stamp out a persistent Covid outbreak, its biggest such move since the pandemic started in Wuhan, underscoring how the country's zero-tolerance approach hasn't allowed it to move on since the virus emerged nearly two years ago.

The 13 million residents of Xi'an were told to remain in their homes and to designate one person to go out every other day for necessities, triggering fights over access to food. Non-essential travel out of the city was banned. This came after a second round of mass testing pinpointed 127 Covid infections scattered across 14 districts, making containment of the virus "grave and complicated," the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The rising number of cases underscores the challenge China faces at a time of increased holiday travel and preparation for the winter Olympic Games, which will feature an influx of athletes and their entourages in February. The vast majority of the infections stem from the delta variant, which spread through most of the world in the summer and fall. The country is girding for the more infectious omicron strain, which has been shown to evade immunity from vaccination or previous infection.

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan urged "swift" measures to curb the spread of infections, the report said. Sun, whose membership in the 25-person Politburo makes her one of China's most-senior officials, also stressed the importance of tightening restrictions on the movement of people to prevent large gatherings in key areas, according to Xinhua.

Protracted Battle
The lockdown of Xi'an is the latest escalation in China's efforts to extinguish local transmission of the delta variant as it becomes the only country in the world still bent on eliminating the virus and bringing cases to zero. To prevent the infections in Xi'an from flowing into other areas, the city cancelled all domestic flights on Thursday, local media reported in the Paper.
Throughout the pandemic, officials have been able to stamp out outbreaks within about a month through mass testing, aggressive contact-tracing and targeted lockdowns.

Yet as the virus's new strains become more infectious, increasingly disruptive measures have been needed to contain outbreaks, putting pressure on the world's second largest economy. It's been more than two months since there were no new local cases of Covid in China.

While local authorities have in the past used targeted lockdowns to slow outbreaks in smaller places in China, no major city has been put under mass restrictions since Wuhan in early 2020. It has a similar population size as Xi'an.

Officials in Beijing on Thursday acknowledged that there will inevitably be Covid infections at the winter Olympic Games, which are set to begin in early February. They urged all participants to get booster shots to better protect against the virus, especially those caused by the immunity-evading omicron variant.

Covert Spread
The outbreak in the city, the capital of many ancient Chinese dynasties that's known for its terracotta warriors, traced its roots to a flight from Pakistan. A cleaner at a quarantine hotel got infected two weeks ago after disinfecting the rooms of travellers who tested positive upon arrival in China. The virus quickly spread to coworkers, while another chain of transmission may have brought it from the airport to local communities.

Many of the early cases were caused by a subtype of the delta strain. Yet the virus's subsequent spread hasn't been fully accounted for, enabling it to covertly fan out across the city and triggering the sweeping lockdown in an effort to contain it. More than 200 cases have been detected through Thursday.

While the number of infections remains small, the fact they are scattered across the city's 14 districts shows how difficult it will be to contain the outbreak. Officials still haven't identified some chains of transmission and the city is initiating a third round of mass testing in hopes of spotting them.

Subsequent cases have been found in two other cities in the Shaanxi Province, where Xi'an is the capital. Infections also occurred in Beijing and the southern Chinese manufacturing hub of Dongguan, where two dozen cases linked to the Xi'an outbreak were detected.

On China's social media, some people described the outbreak as the worst the city has encountered. Videos posted online show people fighting over food and other essential goods in supermarkets as they stock up for the lockdown.

Entrance Examination
The outbreak comes as the city is set to hold a graduate school entrance examination for some 135,000 people next weekend. Some have been told to sit for the exam in other cities or provinces, while those who are infected or have been identified as a close contact will take the test in quarantine.

Meanwhile, China has found four omicron infections from people returning from overseas. It hasn't yet seen the far more infectious strain spread in the local community. Authorities have vowed to tighten restrictions at borders and ports as they see a mounting risk of infection seeping in from overseas.

Chinese city under lockdown as Covid cases rise [Saudi Gazette, 23 Dec 2021]

BEIJING — More than 13 million people in the Chinese city of Xi'an have been ordered to stay at home as authorities attempt to tackle a Covid outbreak there, BBC reported.

The northern city has recorded 143 infections since 9 December.

Under the new restrictions announced on Wednesday, only one person per household is allowed to leave home every two days to buy essential goods.

China has a strict zero-Covid strategy, using mass testing and lockdown to stop outbreaks.

The country is on high alert for Covid as it gears up to host the 2022 Winter Olympics in February.

Residents of Xi'an, known for its Terracotta Warriors, are not allowed to leave the city unless they have extenuating circumstances and approval from officials to so do. The restrictions came into effect at midnight on Thursday local time.

It is not yet known how long the restrictions will last.

Millions of tests have been conducted in Shaanxi province, where Xi'an is located.

Long-distance bus stations have already closed and checkpoints have been installed on motorways into the city. A large number of flights from Xi'an's airport have been cancelled.

Non-essential businesses have closed and local government employees have been told to work from home.

Last weekend authorities had already closed indoor facilities such as bars, gyms and cinemas as a precaution, according to state-run Global Times.

Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.

State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.

China has admitted that Covid-19 remains the "biggest challenge" to the Winter Olympics.

The country, where the virus was first recorded, has confirmed more than 113,000 cases and 4,849 deaths.

Chinese Terracotta Warriors city Xian in lockdown as Covid-19 outbreak grows [South China Morning Post, 23 Dec 2021]

BY Phoebe Zhangand Guo Rui

The northwestern Chinese city of Xian launched lockdown measures on Thursday as it accounted for 63 of the country’s 71 new local symptomatic Covid-19 cases, detected in citywide testing.

Home to the famed Terracotta Warriors and nearly 100 universities and colleges, the capital of Shaanxi province is battling a twin onslaught of the coronavirus and deadly seasonal haemorrhagic fever. The city of 13 million residents had on Wednesday reported 52 symptomatic cases from the same round of testing.

On Wednesday night, the Xian government announced that starting on Thursday, people could leave the city only where absolutely necessary, for which permission needed to be granted.

All residential compounds, villages and companies were placed in lockdown. Each family was permitted to send one member to buy supplies every two days, but no other trips were allowed except emergencies such as admission to hospital.

Schools, tourism and mass gatherings were suspended, while shops and entertainment venues were closed and dining in was halted in restaurants.

The Xian clusters had already been confirmed as having spread to four cities: Yanan and Xianyang in Shaanxi, Dongguan in the southern Guangdong province, and Beijing in the north.
China on Monday further tightened its stringent Covid-19 quarantine and border control rules to counter the threat of the Omicron variant, and health authorities pledged to stick with the country’s zero-Covid policy.

Nationwide, besides the 71 new local symptomatic cases announced on Thursday, there were two local asymptomatic cases and 46 imported cases (29 of them symptomatic).
Ian Yang, a 38-year-old social worker in Xian, told the South China Morning Post she had been working from home for three days, leaving her flat only for Covid-19 testing.
“Starting today, my residential compound is handing out a dated permission card to every family, and people are only allowed to enter and exit after showing the card at the gate,” she said.

Her family has stocked up on food and other necessities for a week, and placed further orders online.

Asia-Pacific countries adopt varying approaches to dealing with Omicron coronavirus variant
Universities are operating under strict regulations. Gao Yongkai, a student at the local Xidian University, said academic buildings had been closed and student volunteers were helping to conduct campuswide Covid-19 testing.

“Currently classes are finished and it’s academic testing month, so you see many people studying while standing in queues for Covid-19 tests,” he said.

This weekend, the postgraduate admission test – a requirement for all graduate schools in mainland China – is also due to take place in Xian. Students who were unable to reach the city were told they could apply to take it elsewhere.

Xian has come under criticism in recent days for chaotic arrangements including its health code app – essential as a track-and-trace tool – breaking down on Monday, causing confusion and frustration among locals.

New Coronavirus News from 22 Dec 2021

Early studies suggest a reduced risk of Covid-19 hospitalization when infected with Omicron compared to Delta [CNN, 22 Dec 2021]

By Jacqueline Howard

(CNN)Two new preprint papers add to the growing evidence that the Omicron coronavirus variant may be less likely to cause severe disease and hospitalization compared to the Delta variant.

Omicron is associated with a two-thirds reduction in the risk of Covid-19 hospitalization compared with Delta, suggests one study, released online Wednesday as a working paper by researchers at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. That research was based out of Scotland.

The other paper, posted Tuesday to the online server medrxiv.org, suggests that people with Omicron infections have had 80% lower odds of being admitted to the hospital compared with Delta infections. But once a patient was hospitalized, there was no difference in the risk of severe disease, according to that research, based out of South Africa.

Both studies include preliminary data and have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The study out of Scotland included data on 23,840 Omicron cases and 126,511 Delta cases, from November 1 to December 19. The researchers -- from the University of Edinburgh, University of Strathclyde and Public Health Scotland -- took a close look at the health outcomes among those Omicron infections compared with Delta infections. There were 15 hospital admissions among those with Omicron infections and 856 hospital admissions among Delta.

"Although small in number, the study is good news. The two thirds reduction in hospitalisation of double vaccinated young people compared to Delta indicates that Omicron will be milder for more people," James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute and professor of structural biology at the University of Oxford, who was not involved in either study, said in a written statement distributed by the UK-based Science Media Centre on Wednesday.

"The study is rigorous but it is early (thus might change a bit with more data and more studies will report in the weeks ahead). It should be noted that some South African scientists have been saying Omicron was milder for some time," Naismith said. "Although two thirds reduction is significant, Omicron can cause severe illness in the doubly vaccinated. Thus, if Omicron continues to double every few days, it could generate many more hospitalisations than Delta from the double vaccinated population."

The researchers found that the proportion of Omicron cases that were likely reinfections in people who have had Covid-19 before was more than 10 times that of Delta. The data also showed that having received a third dose of vaccine, or booster shot, was associated with a 57% reduction in the risk of symptomatic Omicron infection when compared with being at least 25 weeks out from completing a second dose.

"These early national data suggest that Omicron is associated with a two-thirds reduction in the risk of COVID-19 hospitalisation when compared to Delta. Whilst offering the greatest protection against Delta, the third/booster dose of vaccination offers substantial additional protection against the risk of symptomatic COVID-19 for Omicron," the researchers wrote in the paper.

The other paper involved data on 161,328 Covid-19 cases reported nationally in South Africa between October 1 and December 6. The researchers -- from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town -- found that among people with Omicron infection, 2.5% were admitted to the hospital during that time compared with 12.8% of people with Delta infection.

The researchers wrote in their paper, "These are early data and findings may change as the epidemic progresses."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, presented this latest data from South Africa and Scotland at a White House briefing Wednesday -- adding that more research is needed to determine if similar results would emerge in the United States.

"In fact, it appears, that in the context of South Africa, there is a decrease in the severity compared to Delta -- both in the relationship and ratio between hospitalizations and the number of infections, the duration of hospital stay and the need for supplemental oxygen therapy," Fauci said Wednesday.

"Recently, literally yesterday, there was another paper that came out from Scotland, which appears to validate and verify the data that are in South Africa," Fauci said. "This is good news, however, we must wait to see what happens in our own population, which has its own demographic considerations."

Separate preliminary data out of the United Kingdom has shown a "moderate" reduction in hospitalization risk from the Omicron variant in England relative to Delta infections, according to a report published by the Imperial College COVID-19 response team on Wednesday.

The study, based on data from all PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases in England between December 1 and December 14, was conducted by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Jameel Institute, and Imperial College London. SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

The study estimates the risk of being hospitalized for a day or longer due to the Omicron variant to be 40% to 45% lower than for the Delta variant.

"We find evidence of a reduction in the risk of hospitalization for Omicron relative to Delta infections, averaging over all cases in the study period," the report states.

"These reductions must be balanced against the larger risk of infection with Omicron, due to the reduction in protection provided by both vaccination and natural infection," the report cautions. "At a population level, large numbers of infections could still lead to large numbers of hospitalizations."

The study notes that individuals infected with Omicron after a documented previous infection are 50% to 60% less likely to be hospitalized, compared with people with no previous documented infection.

The report also notes that the risk of hospitalization "is similar for Omicron and Delta for people who test positive for infection and who previously received at least two vaccine doses, reflecting reduced vaccine efficacy against Omicron compared with Delta."

"However, the risk of hospitalization in vaccinated people remains significantly lower than for unvaccinated people," adds the report, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Overall, "this study finds that previous infection reduces the risk of hospitalization by around two thirds, indicating Omicron is milder if you have some immunity," Naismith, who was not involved in the report, said in another statement distributed by the Science Media Centre on Wednesday.

"However, the study suggests there is no reduction in the severity of Omicron compared to Delta for the doubly vaccinated, indicating that it is not milder," Naismith said. "This finding is surprising but is grounded in data. There is no report on the benefit of boosting."

Fauci says Jesse Watters should 'be fired on the spot' after Fox News host's 'kill shot' comments [NBC News, 22 Dec 2021]

By David K. Li

The conservative provocateur urged people to "ambush" the nation's top infectious disease doctor and to record "kill shot" confrontations.

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday called out the "crazy" threats made against him by Fox News Channel’s Jesse Watters, saying the conservative provocateur should "be fired on the spot."

The nation's top infectious disease doctor, appearing on CNN's "New Day," was responding to comments Watters made over the weekend to the conservative, pro-Trump youth group Turning Point USA.

Watters told the group to "ambush" Fauci in the streets and to record a rhetorical "kill shot."
DEC. 21, 202105:22

"That's horrible. I mean that is such a reflection of the craziness that goes on in society," Fauci said. "The only thing that I have ever done throughout these two years is to encourage people to practice good public health practices, to get vaccinated, to be careful in public settings, to wear a mask and for that you have some guy out there saying that people should be giving me a kill shot to ambush me?"

In his remarks to the far-right youth group, Watters appeared to link Fauci to wild conspiracy theories that connect the respected researcher to alleged biowarfare.

“Now you’re going for the kill shot. The kill shot with an ambush (is) deadly because he doesn’t see it coming,” Watters told the crowd.

“This is when you say, ‘Dr. Fauci, you funded risky research at a sloppy Chinese lab. The same lab that sprung this pandemic on the world. You know why people don’t trust you, don’t you?’ Boom, he is dead! He is dead! He's done!”

The CNN interviewer declined to play Watters' comments, fearing it could incite violence.

"I mean what kind of craziness is there in society these days? That’s awful that he said that.

And he’s going to go, very likely, unaccountable," Fauci said. "I mean whatever network he’s on is not going to do anything ... I mean that’s crazy. The guy should be fired on the spot.”

And a Fox News Channel representative made good on Fauci's prediction, as the network backed Watters' incendiary language.

“Based on watching the full clip and reading the entire transcript, it’s more than clear that Jesse Watters was using a metaphor for asking hard-hitting questions to Dr. Fauci about gain-of-function research and his words have been twisted completely out of context," according to an FNC statement to NBC News on Tuesday.

Fauci has become a reviled figure among far-right activists who view him as a symbol of federal efforts to control the Covid-19 pandemic which has killed more than 810,000 Americans.

New Coronavirus News from 21 Dec 2021

China must share more data on virus origins: WHO chief [News Today, 21 Dec 2021]

Geneva: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that there had been many failures during the Covid-19 pandemic due to a lack of rules or obligations under the WHO’s current 2005 International Health Regulations.

China must be more forthcoming with data and information related to the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that there had been “many failures” during the Covid-19 pandemic due to a lack of rules or obligations under the WHO’s current 2005 International Health Regulations.

We need to continue until we know the origins, we need to push harder because we should learn from what happened this time in order to (do) better in the future, Tedros told a news briefing for Geneva journalists.

Meanwhile, since the beginning of winter this year, Xi’an in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, has recorded a litany of haemorrhagic fever cases, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate.

Experts of the local Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said rodents are the main source of the infection and vaccination is the most effective way to prevent the disease from spreading, Global Times reported.

Haemorrhagic fever is said to be a common infectious disease in the north. From October every year, some areas of Shaanxi Province enter the high incidence season of haemorrhagic fever.

In recent years, the virus institute of Shaanxi CDC confirmed the local infection of the virus in Xi’an city through a large number of field investigations and laboratory neutralization antibody detection and identification, the report said.

Experts said that haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, also known as epidemic haemorrhagic fever, is caused by Hantavirus, with rodents as the main source of infection.

Chinese Terracotta Warriors city battles Covid-19 and deadly fever [South China Morning Post, 21 Dec 2021]

By Guo Rui

More than half of China’s new Covid-19 cases have been detected in Xian, marking a new high for the northwestern city battling a twin onslaught of the coronavirus and deadly haemorrhagic fever.

The country reported 81 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on Monday, 57 of them locally transmitted, the National Health Commission said.

Forty-two of the new local cases were found in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province, setting a record for the Covid-19 outbreak there.

More than half of China’s new Covid-19 cases have been detected in Xian, marking a new high for the northwestern city battling a twin onslaught of the coronavirus and deadly haemorrhagic fever.

The country reported 81 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on Monday, 57 of them locally transmitted, the National Health Commission said.

Forty-two of the new local cases were found in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province, setting a record for the Covid-19 outbreak there.

Xian municipal authorities said the system crashed due to heavy traffic and advised the public to reduce usage unless unnecessary.

But a resident vented his frustration online, saying such advice was meaningless.

“It’s really a joke! What does ‘don’t show your health code unless necessary’ mean? Do we enjoy showing it? You should hurry to fix the system,” the user posted on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like messaging platform.

This came as the Xian clusters spilled over to four cities – Yanan and Xianyang in Shaanxi, Dongguan in southern Guangdong province and Beijing in the north.

Xian municipal authorities said the system crashed due to heavy traffic and advised the public to reduce usage unless unnecessary.

But a resident vented his frustration online, saying such advice was meaningless.
“It’s really a joke! What does ‘don’t show your health code unless necessary’ mean? Do we enjoy showing it? You should hurry to fix the system,” the user posted on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like messaging platform.

This came as the Xian clusters spilled over to four cities – Yanan and Xianyang in Shaanxi, Dongguan in southern Guangdong province and Beijing in the north.

National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng has said the general policy of “dynamic zero infection” should continue through the winter and spring, but urged authorities to avoid a “one size fits all” approach, so as to reduce disruptions to people’s lives.

Liang Wannian, the head of the NHC’s Covid-19 response expert panel, said local officials should depend on their own risk assessment and discretion in deciding whether to allow travel during the Lunar New Year – a traditional season for family reunions in China – or implement lockdowns.

However, tough restrictions will apply to high-risk areas such as border controls or Olympic venues, Liang said.

“In areas at high risk of epidemic [transmission], and special areas such as ports and borders, as well as areas where major events will be held, such as the upcoming Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics in Beijing, strict control measures should be maintained.”

China must share more data on virus origins: WHO chief [News Today, 21 Dec 2021]

Geneva: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that there had been many failures during the Covid-19 pandemic due to a lack of rules or obligations under the WHO’s current 2005 International Health Regulations.

China must be more forthcoming with data and information related to the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that there had been “many failures” during the Covid-19 pandemic due to a lack of rules or obligations under the WHO’s current 2005 International Health Regulations.

We need to continue until we know the origins, we need to push harder because we should learn from what happened this time in order to (do) better in the future, Tedros told a news briefing for Geneva journalists.

Meanwhile, since the beginning of winter this year, Xi’an in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, has recorded a litany of haemorrhagic fever cases, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate.

Experts of the local Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said rodents are the main source of the infection and vaccination is the most effective way to prevent the disease from spreading, Global Times reported.

Haemorrhagic fever is said to be a common infectious disease in the north. From October every year, some areas of Shaanxi Province enter the high incidence season of haemorrhagic fever.

In recent years, the virus institute of Shaanxi CDC confirmed the local infection of the virus in Xi’an city through a large number of field investigations and laboratory neutralization antibody detection and identification, the report said.

Experts said that haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, also known as epidemic haemorrhagic fever, is caused by Hantavirus, with rodents as the main source of infection.

How Omicron is hitting travel to Europe [CNN, 21 Dec 2021]

By Tamara Hardingham-Gill

(CNN) — Omicron is continuing to spread at an alarming rate across Europe and governments are once again being forced to make tough decisions in order to contain the highly contagious variant.
As more and more restrictions are brought in, travel to and across Europe is becoming increasingly difficult for tourists, particularly those from the UK, where cases have skyrocketed.

The Netherlands entered a strict lockdown on Sunday, with nonessential shops, hospitality venues and cultural institutions all closing and indoor gatherings limited to a maximum of two visitors.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte described the move as "unavoidable" due to the surge in infections around the country.

"The Netherlands is again shutting down. That is unavoidable because of the fifth wave that is coming at us with the Omicron variant," Rutte said during a news conference at the weekend.
The decision came just days after Germany announced a mandatory 14-day quarantine on all travelers arriving from the UK beginning on December 20.

Meanwhile, France has placed a ban on all nonessential visitors to and from the UK in a bid to ease the spread of the new variant. The move came as many UK tourists were preparing to travel for the start of the Alpine ski season.

"As the Omicron variant spreads extremely quickly in the United Kingdom, the French government has decided to re-implement compelling reasons for travels from and to the United Kingdom, and to reinforce mandatory tests at departures and arrivals," French Prime Minister Jean Castex said in statement last week.

On Saturday, more than 90,000 Covid-19 cases were reported in the UK for the second day in a row, including more than 10,000 Omicron cases.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan declared a major incident in the capital on the same day due to the "huge surge" in cases, as well as an increase in hospital admissions.

Blow for UK
While government officials have stepped up a campaign to ensure all fully vaccinated adults receive a booster shot before the end of December, the new restrictions from France and Germany will no doubt be a major blow for the destination, with fears that other European countries may follow suit.

Meanwhile, both Greece and Italy have implemented restrictions requiring all visitors, including those from within the EU, to present a negative Covid-19 test before entering.

Although an antigen test taken no more than 24-hours before departure is permitted for entry into Italy, those visiting Greece must produce a negative PCR test taken in the past 48 hours.

Up until relatively recently, fully-vaccinated travelers arriving from Schengen countries could enter without having to take a Covid-19 test.

However, a number of European destinations, including Portugal, have re-introduced mandatory testing requirements for all visitors due to the new variant.

Denmark and Norway have also opted to introduce new Covid-19 restrictions over the past few days due to increasing infection rates, while all UK travelers aged over 12 who visit Cyprus are now required to take an airport PCR test on arrival and quarantine until they receive a negative result.

Deteriorating situation
In Denmark, public venues such as cinemas and concert halls have been shut, as well as popular amusement park Tivoli Gardens, while government officials have opted to close gyms and swimming pools in Norway, as well as ban the serving of alcohol in bars and restaurants.
During a conference earlier this month, Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre noted that the country needed to "act fast and we need to act again," in order to contain the spread of the Omicron variant.

"For many this will feel like a lockdown, if not of society then of their lives and of their livelihoods," he added.

Over in Sweden, the vaccine passport exemption will be dropped for visitors from fellow Nordic countries Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland from December 21, which means those arriving from these destinations will have to present proof of vaccination on entry.

Swedish Social Affairs Minister Lena Hallengren has also advised anyone traveling to the country to take a Covid-19 test in advance due to the "deteriorating" situation.


"The spread of infection is increasing sharply. The new virus variant omicron makes it difficult to predict the spread of infection in the future," Hallengren said during a press conference last week, before telling residents to "be prepared to cancel" their Christmas plans if they display any Covid-19 symptoms and to "choose a smaller party" for any New Year's Eve celebrations.

In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called an emergency meeting for Wednesday to "evaluate new measures that could be introduced in the coming weeks."

Bars and restaurants are required to close by 8 p.m. in Ireland, where more than half of new Covid-19 infections are believed to be Omicron cases as of December 20.

Since it first emerged in late November, Omicron has been detected in 89 countries, with coronavirus cases involving the variant doubling every 1.5 to three days according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Biden assures Americans vaccinated against Covid-19 that they can go ahead with holiday plans despite Omicron surge [CNN, 21 Dec 2021]

By Kevin Liptak, Nikki Carvajal, Jeremy Diamond and Maegan Vazquez

(CNN)President Joe Biden aimed to reassure vaccinated Americans that they can still proceed with their holiday plans without fear of becoming seriously ill, announcing a number of new efforts to combat a surge of Covid-19 cases in the United States.

"I know some Americans are wondering if you can safely celebrate the holidays with your family and friends. The answer is, yes you can if you and those you celebrate with are vaccinated, particularly if you've gotten your booster shot," Biden said in a White House speech Tuesday.

The speech, which came just days before Christmas, reflects Biden's renewed focus on the coronavirus pandemic as anxiety rises around the country at the steep spike in cases and concerns about whether new restrictive measures will be needed to limit the spread.

Biden emphasized repeatedly throughout the speech that the current moment is different than March 2020, when the coronavirus solidified its grip on the US.

"The other question folks are asking is, 'Are we going back to March 2020?' ... The answer is absolutely no. No," Biden said.

The President told vaccinated Americans they should feel comfortable celebrating the holidays as they planned if they take the proper precautions, but he also warned the tens of millions of Americans who have so far declined to get shots that they run a high risk of becoming ill or hospitalized. And he also invoked the name of his predecessor to encourage Americans to get their booster shot.

"I got my booster shot as soon as they were available," the President said, "and just the other day former President Trump announced he had gotten his booster shot."

"It may be one of the few things he and I agree on," Biden added. "People with booster shots are highly protected. Join them, join us."

Testing under scrutiny
During his speech, Biden announced the purchase of a half-billion at-home rapid Covid-19 tests, one of a series of new steps he unveiled as the country faces a potentially crippling wintertime surge of infections.

The 500 million new tests will be made available next month and will reach Americans through the mail, according to the White House.

"To be clear, we're not sending a test to every single home in the country," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during Tuesday's White House press briefing. "We are providing an opportunity, another opportunity or ability for people to ... go on a website and request a test if their preference is to get that test to their home. Not everybody will do that. But we want people who want to do that, who want to get tested, who want to request test that way to have that ability to do (it)."

The President told reporters after his speech that the current shortage of Covid-19 tests in the US is "not a failure," but rather a reflection of a dramatic surge in cases.

"No it's not," he said, "because Covid is spreading so rapidly."

"The alarms are going off," the President said, adding, "I don't think anybody anticipated this would be as rapid at spreading as it did ... then all of the sudden it was like everybody rushed to the counter was a big, big rush."

"I knew that was coming," Biden insisted, "so what I tried to do was meet with the companies to use the Defense Production Act to get a half a billion more tests."

Asked by another reporter what took so long to ramp up production of tests, Biden seemed irritated at the question.

"Come on, 'What took so long?'" he asked. "What took so long is it didn't take long at all."

Details on program still being worked out
The administration is still working to determine how many tests each household may request.

Senior administration officials were unable to provide any new details about exactly when the website to request the tests will launch and how quickly tests will be shipped out. Psaki said Tuesday that the expectation is that the website will be able to sustain a surge of incoming web traffic.

And a senior administration official said during a briefing with CNN Tuesday morning that the administration is still "working through all the details. And we'll have those in the coming weeks."

The official said the "first deliveries" of those tests will happen in January and that the website will launch "in January or around January as well." The official also said the White House is "working through all the details" when asked how Americans without internet access could secure tests.

The new test shipment scheme came during remarks meant to underscore the White House's plan to confront what is expected to be a large spike in cases driven by the now-dominant Omicron variant in the coming weeks. Already, cases are rising rapidly in areas around the country and hospitals are nearing capacity.

Lines for testing centers have stretched for blocks in certain areas, including the northeast, leading the White House to develop plans to open new federal testing sites in New York City before Christmas.

Distributing free at-home tests to all Americans was written off by the White House as recently as this month. Press secretary Jen Psaki scoffed earlier this month when asked if tests should be free and given out, available everywhere.

"Should we just send one to every American?" she asked.

But on Tuesday in the briefing room, Psaki expressed some regret about her earlier comments.

"There's not a day that goes by that I don't leave this podium and wish I would have said something with greater context or a more precision or additional information," Psaki said.

"There was a lot of good questioning on testing, and during that briefing, I conveyed a lot of information about our expansion of testing, about the 15 million tests that we were making available about the 20,000 free testing sites," she continued. "Should I have included that additional context?... Yes, going back I wish I would have done that."

New federal Covid-19 efforts
Among the President's new initiatives is a plan to prepare 1,000 military service members to deploy to overburdened hospitals across the country in January and February, administration officials said. Those service members will include doctors, nurses, medics and other military medical personnel.

An official said, "God willing" the full 1,000 wouldn't be needed, "but if we do, they are ready and they're mobilized."

Biden also announced new vaccination sites and increased vaccine access, and will deploy hundreds of additional federal vaccinators.

Though demand for vaccines has dwindled in recent months, the surge caused by the Delta variant earlier this year did lead to increased demand for vaccinations in some of the hardest hit areas.

Biden also addressed FEMA efforts to expand hospital capacity and to pre-position medical supplies in places where stocks may run low in the coming weeks.

In his remarks, the President acknowledged a likely rise in cases -- including among vaccinated people -- but emphasized the drastically different outcomes for those with shots and those unprotected by vaccines.

Biden and his team have been adamant that federal lockdown recommendations aren't in the cards this time. And in his remarks, Biden focused on steps primarily to forestall a crippling of the US public health system than on efforts to fully stop the spread of the virus.

The White House plan announced Tuesday does not ship tests to every American; instead people would request the tests online instead. Those who utilize them will not have to report their results to public health agencies, officials said.

Pressed on that shift, a senior administration official insisted that the new plan "builds" on the administration's previous testing initiatives and pointed to increased supply.

The official also pointed out that "demand for tests ... has spiked now" amid the Omicron surge and the holiday season and said that the government's purchase of 500 million tests is an extra layer on top of existing commercial supply.

The administration had already announced a plan requiring health insurance providers to reimburse plan-holders for the cost of at-home tests; that initiative remains in place next year.