New Coronavirus News from 4 Dec 2021

Omicron COVID-19 variant cases grow to 15 in NSW, second school linked to cluster [ABC News, 4 Dec 2021]

NSW Health authorities say there are now five Omicron cases connected to a cluster at an indoor climbing gym and two Western Sydney schools.

A confirmed case in the ACT has also been linked to the Sydney Indoor Climbing Gym at Villawood.

There are now 15 cases of COVID-19 with the Omicron variant across the state.

The outbreak of cases connected to Regents Park Christian School and the indoor gym has now spread to a primary school in Regents Park.

A student from St Peter Chanel Catholic Primary School in Regents Park is confirmed as a new case of Omicron, after going to the indoor gym on November 27.

All year three and year four students and teachers at the school have been deemed close contacts and asked to self-isolate.

Genomic sequencing is underway on a number of other cases linked to the schools and gym, NSW Health said.

Anyone who was at the Sydney Indoor Climbing Gym in Villawood on Saturday, November 27, between 9am and 4.30pm is considered a close contact and must get tested and isolate for seven days.

So far, nobody with the Omicron variant has been admitted to hospital for treatment in NSW.
New South Wales has recorded 286 new COVID-19 cases and 1 death in the past 24 hours to 8pm last night.

A man aged in his 60s from south-eastern Sydney has died at St George Hospital.

NSW Health said he had received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine and had underlying health conditions.

There were 66,671 COVID-19 tests reported to 8pm last night, down from 68,435 the previous day.

Several cases confirmed as the Omicron variant travelled back to NSW on flights from overseas destinations in late November.

Anyone who has been in South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Eswatini and Malawi 14-days before arriving in NSW must go into hotel quarantine for 14 days, irrespective of their vaccination.

Those who have visited any of the eight African countries within the previous 14 days must get tested and isolate for 14 days, and call NSW Health.

To date, 92.8 per cent of New South Wales residents aged 16 and over have had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Omicron proves we’re not in control of Covid – only global action can stop this pandemic [The Guardian, 4 Dec 2021]

By Jeremy Farrar

If we keep allowing this virus to spread through unvaccinated populations, the next variant could be even more deadly

I t’s almost two years since we first heard of Covid-19, and a year since the first Covid vaccines were rolled out. Yet this staggering progress is being squandered. We have drifted for months now, with richer countries, taking a very blinkered domestic focus, lulled into thinking that the worst of the pandemic was behind us. This variant reminds us all that we remain closer to the start of the pandemic than the end.

There is a lot we need to learn about the Omicron variant. Whether or not this is a pandemic-changing variant – one that really evades our vaccines and treatments – remains to be seen. Research will tell us more in the coming days and weeks, and we must watch and follow the data closely while giving the brilliant scientific teams time to get the answers. Although I am very worried about countries with limited access to vaccines, I am cautiously hopeful that our current vaccines will continue to protect us against severe sickness and death, if we are fully vaccinated.

But that may not be true for the next variant.

The longer this virus continues to spread in largely unvaccinated populations globally, the more likely it is that a variant that can overcome our vaccines and treatments will emerge. If that happens, we could be close to square one.

Importantly, right now, the urgent things haven’t changed: wearing masks indoors, increasing testing, social distancing, isolating if positive (with support to do so) and vaccination will all help to drive down transmission and protect against illness. We will probably never know for certain how or where Omicron originated, but we must continue to protect the most vulnerable as a priority, including immune-compromised people, the elderly and healthcare workers.

It is understandable that countries are moving to use boosters to protect their populations. This must happen in parallel with ensuring global vaccine supply. Supply is finally increasing, and, with political will, it can be achieved. Rich countries, who have the majority of existing supply, must share more doses over the coming months.

Covid-19 has already killed millions and changed everyday life for us all, but we must do everything we can to avoid a return to lockdowns – a sign that public health has failed. World leaders, by continuing to ignore the warnings and focusing only on their national populations, are playing with fire and putting our hard-won progress at risk. It is unbelievable that the ACT-Accelerator is still having to plead for the funding urgently needed to end this pandemic.

It is crucial that world leaders see this for what it is: still the most urgent threat facing our world

This political drift and lack of leadership is prolonging the pandemic for everyone, with governments unwilling to really address inequitable access to the vaccines, tests and treatment. We are not yet in control of this pandemic – Omicron or an even worse variant could arise at any time. There have been wonderful speeches, warm words but not the actions needed to ensure fair access to what we know works and would bring the pandemic to a close.

Even before we learned of this new variant, the global picture was already deeply troubling. The fourth wave we are seeing in Europe and southern Africa will soon hit the US, central and south America, and Asia. As the UK passes the G7 presidency to Germany, and Italy hands G20 to Indonesia later this month, it is crucial that world leaders see this for what it is: still the most urgent threat facing our world.

We will only bring this pandemic to an end by working together globally and sharing access to all the vital public health tools needed to reduce transmission everywhere and save lives. It is staggering and utterly frustrating that, two years on, governments still haven’t woken up and realised this is in their enlightened, shared self-interest.

Acting in national self-interest will only ever perpetuate this crisis, trapping us in a cycle of waves, new variants, lost lives and continued economic and societal disruption.

No country should believe they are safe, purely because they’ve vaccinated their own populations. We can and must do better than this.

Omicron outbreak at Norway Christmas party is biggest outside S. Africa, authorities say [CNBC, 4 Dec 2021]

At least 13 people in Oslo have been infected with the omicron variant of the coronavirus following a corporate Christmas party described as a "super spreader event," and their numbers could rise to over 60 cases, authorities said on Friday.

The outbreak took place at a Christmas party on Nov. 26 organized by renewable energy company Scatec, which has operations in South Africa where the variant was first detected.
"This party has been a super spreader event," Preben Aavitsland, a senior physician at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, told Reuters by email.

"Our working hypothesis is that at least half of the 120 participants were infected with the omicron variant during the party. This makes this, for now, the largest omicron outbreak outside South Africa."

Aside from the people infected at the party, Aavitsland said, two people living on the country's west coast and two people in quarantine at Oslo airport have been confirmed as carrying the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

The outbreak led the Norwegian government to reintroduce some nationwide restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Across Europe, companies are cancelling Christmas party plans due to the emergence of the omicron variant.

Party
The first person in Oslo confirmed as infected had attended the party, where at least one employee had just returned from South Africa. All the attendees were fully vaccinated and had tested negative before the event.

"Health authorities have confirmed a further 12 cases of omicron in Oslo after an outbreak," the city of Oslo said in a statement. "So far 13 omicron cases have been confirmed after sequencing. More cases are expected."

Health authorities said the individuals infected were so far displaying mild symptoms, with none hospitalized.

"It is still too early to say whether the clinical picture of the disease is different in Omicron infections than in Delta infections," Aavitsland said.

"None of the patients has severe symptoms; none is hospitalised. However, this is not unexpected given the young age of the participants."

Scatec said it had been following authorities' advice throughout the pandemic. It also said its focus was on taking care of its employees and on limiting the spread of the virus.

Britain Counts Around 160 Omicron Cases and Tightens Restrictions [The New York Times, 4 Dec 2021]

By Megan Specia

As the number of confirmed cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant rose to 160 in Britain, the government on Saturday announced further tightening of travel restrictions to combat its spread.

Beginning Tuesday, travelers will be required to take a coronavirus test within 48 hours of traveling to Britain regardless of their vaccination status. Britain will also impose restrictions on travelers from Nigeria, the country’s health secretary said in a statement. Nigeria announced on Wednesday that it had detected the variant in three travelers who arrived from South Africa in November, according to Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, the director general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

The two additional measures being imposed by Britain are the latest to come after a week of heightened concern led to the introduction of a number of restrictions intended to slow the incursion of the Omicron variant.

At the moment, travelers are required to self-isolate and take a coronavirus test on the second day after arriving. If that test is negative, they can end their isolation. If not, they are expected to remain in self-isolation until they do get a negative result.

There are now 160 confirmed cases of the Omicron variant across Britain, Britain’s Health Security Agency confirmed on Saturday, up from 134 cases reported by the agency on Friday. Britain is considered a leader in genomic sequencing and testing, with a well-run national program to track coronavirus mutations, so it has an advantage in tracking the variant’s spread.

“We’ve kept the data under review over the last week or so since we learned about Omicron,” Sajid Javid, the country’s health secretary, said during a news briefing. “And we’re seeing an increasing number of cases linked to travel.”

He stressed that the new containment measures are temporary, but he added that “before we learn more about Omicron, it’s right that we have these measures in place.”

Mr. Javid was also clear that the government was advising the British public to continue with life as usual while adhering to coronavirus guidelines.

“People should carry on with their plans, and make plans to enjoy Christmas as usual,” he said.

Omicron variant cases identified in at least 12 states but Delta still dominates [CNN, 4 Dec 2021]

By Jamie Gumbrecht, Jen Christensen and Maggie Fox,

(CNN)While at least 12 states have identified cases of the Omicron coronavairus variant, US health officials remain concerned about the Delta version that accounts for practically all new infections.

"We now have about 86,000 cases of Covid right now in the United States being diagnosed daily, and 99.9% of them, the vast majority of them, continue to be Delta," US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Friday.

"And we know what we need to do against Delta, and that is get vaccinated, get boosted if you're eligible and continue all of those prevention measures including masking," she told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. "And those are very likely to work against the Omicron variant."

Omicron may be more transmissible than Delta
The first confirmed Omicron case in the US was identified in California on Wednesday.

Cases of the newest coronavirus variant were identified by late Friday in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Utah, according to health officials.

Results from studies to determine the severity and transmissibility of Omicron are expected in the coming weeks.

Walensky said Omicron could become the dominant US strain but that's still unclear. The country has stepped up its sequencing work to learn more about the new variant.

"What we do know is that early data, and even mutation data, are telling us that this may well be a more transmissible variant than Delta," she added. "And so ... this is gonna take some time to sort out."

One Omicron case, in Minnesota, was in a resident who had a Covid-19 booster and health officials are trying to understand more about it, according to Walensky.

"It is helpful to understand that this person had mild symptoms that have, to my understanding, resolved pretty swiftly," she added. "So this may very well be actually a story of vaccine success, and not necessarily one of vaccine failure."

The Biden administration last week announced restrictions against travelers, with the exception of US citizens and legal permanent residents, from entering the US from eight southern African nations. The Omicron variant was first identified by South African scientists.

Contingencies set in case new vaccine is needed against Omicron
Pharmaceutical companies that make Covid-19 vaccines have contingency plans in place should a new vaccine be needed against the Omicron variant, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Friday.

Data indicate that people "could probably get a good bit of mileage" from boosting with the vaccines currently in use, Fauci said during a White House Covid-19 Response Team briefing.

"Having said that, we are working with the pharmaceutical companies, particularly obviously Moderna, Pfizer and J&J, on what their plans are," he added.

"And they do have plans that have multiple contingency. One is to rev up the production of the vaccines that they already have, the next is to make, for example, a bivalent -- where you have the vaccine against both the ancestral strain and the new variant -- and the other is to make a variant-specific boost."

The US Food and Drug Administration would decide what regulatory process these vaccines would need to go through, Fauci said, "but in general, it could -- and I say could -- fall under the same situation as we do with a strain change for influenza. But I would have to leave that determination to the FDA."

Omicron may have stolen genetic material from a common cold cousin
Omicron carries a stretch of genetic material that looks like it may have come from a distant relative that causes the common cold, researchers said Friday.

An analysis of the many mutations that characterize the new variant shows a long stretch that looks like what's called an insertion -- a piece of genetic material that could have been taken straight from another virus or possibly even a bacteria or a human cell, according to the researchers.

Viruses are known to do this via a process called recombination.
More study is needed to know what the changes do, and it may never be known where, precisely, they came from. But they could support suggestions that Omicron is more transmissible than earlier variants, the researchers said.

The virus could have picked up the genetic material if it was infecting someone who was infected with HCoV-229E -- one of the coronaviruses that cause common colds in humans -- at the same time, the researchers said.

Viruses can also pick up stretches of genetic material from the people they are infecting. "It is plausible that the Omicron insertion could have evolved in a co-infected individual," the researchers wrote.

Too early to conclude Omicron leads to mild illness, scientist says
It's still too early to conclude whether Omicron leads to milder illnesses overall, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the World Health Organization, said on Friday.

Swaminathan, speaking at the ReutersNEXT Global Conference, noted that it has only been one week since Omicron was classified a variant of concern by WHO and a couple of weeks since it was first observed in South Africa.

"The majority of cases reported so far have reported to be mild," she said. "Many of them have been vaccinated individuals, so that could be one reason why."

She added, "But, it's too early for us to conclude that this is a mild version."

Omicron variant spreads to six more US states, bringing total to 11 [New York Post, 4 Dec 2021]

By Rich Calder

The new Omicron variant has been detected in six more states – bringing the overall total of states with cases to 11.

New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, and Utah each reported their first cases of the new variant on Friday.

Omicron has been detected in about 40 countries, including the United States, where it has already been found in New York, California, Colorado, Hawaii and Minnesota.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it’s investigating possible cases of the Omicron variant in other states, but experts say the Delta strain of Covid-19 is likely a bigger threat as Americans gather for the holiday season.

Scientists are still investigating the impact of the highly contagious Omicron variant, which was first detected in South Africa. Early evidence shows it may cause milder illness than its predecessors, including Delta.

The Omicron outbreak has led to leaders in the U.S. and abroad to impose extra Covid-19 restrictions. But the predominant U.S. strain remains Delta, said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said the state’s first Omicron case was found in a fully-vaccinated woman who had recently traveled to Georgia.

The Utah case was discovered through ongoing genetic sequencing of positive COVID-19 samples at the state laboratory, the state’s health

Nebraska had six confirmed cases, its health department said. Only one of the six people was vaccinated, and none have needed to be hospitalized with COVID-19.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced the first three cases in his state but said none of the individuals were hospitalized.

In Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia man in his 30s tested positive for Omicron, city health officials said.

Missouri was awaiting CDC confirmation of a case involving a St. Louis resident who had recently traveled within the United States.

With omicron looming over the holidays, here's how to stay safe [NPR, 4 Dec 2021]

By MARIA GODOY

Here we go again.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to almost normal times, a new, highly mutated variant of the coronavirus has reared its ugly head in the U.S.

Scientists say it's still too soon to know whether the omicron variant causes more or less severe disease, though early evidence does suggest it's better at evading the immune system than previous strains. And, omicron has raised several red flags that suggest it could be the most transmissible variant yet.

All this has many people wondering whether it's time to change our behavior for safety's sake.
The good news is, you don't have to hibernate like it's 2020. Experts note we're in a much different place than we were last winter, with COVID-19 vaccines and boosters now widely available. There's good hope that the current vaccines offer protection against severe disease with omicron.

That said, if this pandemic has taught us anything, it's that when you don't know what you're dealing with, "we should invoke the precautionary principle," says Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician at Stanford University.

In other words, don't panic, but do be thoughtful about what risks you want to take.

We spoke to several infectious disease experts for advice on living in the age of omicron. But remember: Things are changing quickly, so stay alert. Public health advice may change as we learn more.

Should I be masking again indoors, even in places where masks are not required?

If you're not vaccinated, mask up indoors — and please, get your shots, experts agree. For the vaccinated, you should be wearing masks if you are at higher risk of severe disease because of your age or underlying health conditions — or if you spend time with people who are vulnerable. We know that vaccines aren't always as protective among older people and the immunocompromised.

"The things that we've gotten tired of doing, we need to keep doing, especially masking up in indoor places," says Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That advice would hold true even without the omicron variant, says Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, "because we still have [delta] cases circulating in this country."

While you don't generally need to wear a mask outdoors, it makes sense to if you're in a crowd and you don't know the vaccination status of the people around you, said Dr. Julie Vaishampayan, chair of the public health committee of the Infectious Disease Society of America, during a media briefing Thursday.

Do I need to upgrade to N95, KN95 or similar highly protective mask?

While three-ply cloth masks or surgical masks do a good job at preventing the wearer from spreading infectious particles if they fit snugly and offer the wearer some protection as well, many experts think it would be better to use an N95 or KN95 respirator in crowded indoor public spaces.

This is especially key if you're high risk. "If people around you aren't wearing masks and you are older or you have a weakened immune system, then you should consider upping your mask game and using an N95 mask," says Frieden.

Stanford University's Karan suggests people with other underlying conditions that put them at higher risk — such as obesity, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes — should also consider upgrading to a high-quality N95 or KN95 mask.

And, if you live with people who are at risk, consider upgrading your mask as well, Karan says. Double masking with a surgical mask topped by a cloth mask will also boost your protection, notes Gandhi.

Should I cancel my holiday travel plans?

Not necessarily just yet, but do be very thoughtful about them, says Dr. Henry Wu, director of Emory TravelWell Center and an associate professor of infectious diseases at Emory University School of Medicine. "Anyone who's thinking of traveling should pause and consider both your own risk, as well as certain other practical issues about your destination."

For starters, the U.S. is now requiring all travelers entering the U.S., including Americans returning home, to be tested for the coronavirus no more than one day before departure. If you're in another country, you'll have to make sure you know where to get a test that qualifies within that time frame, which could be a logistical headache.

And remember, the situation on the ground is changing, so keep a watch on the CDC's travel notices. "You certainly want to avoid traveling to countries that are in the midst of a surge and potentially have overwhelmed health systems. You certainly don't want to risk needing to go to an overcrowded hospital if you have your own health problems, COVID or not," Wu says.

Domestic travelers aren't required to test before flying, but it's still a good idea to do so before departure and after arrival — especially if you are visiting someone in a high-risk group. That's what Wu plans to do when he visits his elderly parents in Hawaii next week. "I will, even though it's not required, test myself before my trip and I think I'll bring some self- test kits when I get home, just to be even more sure that I'm not infectious at that time," he says.

If you're unvaccinated, over the age of 65 or have medical conditions that put you at higher risk of severe disease with COVID-19, you should seriously reconsider if now is a good time to travel, Wu says.

And of course, if you do fly or take public transport to your destination, wear a high-quality, snug-fitting mask like an N95 or KN95.

With all the concern that omicron might evade our vaccines, should I bother to get a booster?
The Biden administration came out this week urging people once again to get a booster to help protect against omicron. The recommendation is in line with recent science showing that boosters raise your antibody levels.

A recent preprint study even showed that getting a third dose of the mRNA vaccines could "generate a much broader immune response," says Dr. Kavita Patel, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution and a primary care physician. This could give broader coverage against a variant like omicron she says, "which is why I think you're hearing a number of us, many doctors, public health folks, scientists saying boosters do matter."

Paul Bieniasz is a virologist at Rockefeller University who studies how the immune system response broadens over time, and he concurs. "I'm somebody who's been vaccinated three times, and I think that that's absolutely the right way to go," he says.

"I think anyone who is around immunocompromised individuals should absolutely be ensured that they boost," Gandhi says. "I was actually not going to get a booster because I was protesting global vaccine equity. And I just received one because I need to be around my immunocompromised father."

Is it safe to have a large, indoor social gathering, like a holiday party? Should guests all test in advance?

Safety is important, but so is gathering with loved ones at this time of year, and there are steps you can take to lower the risks for everyone. "What we need to do is add more layers of protection," says Vaishampayan.

First, says Karan, make sure everyone present has gotten a COVID-19 vaccine and booster shot if they're eligible.

If you have access to rapid antigen tests, have your guests take one, especially if they're traveling from other parts of the country. "That's a great way to prevent somebody who is infected from coming in and infecting somebody else," Dr. Carlos Del Rio, an infectious disease specialist at Emory University, told reporters this week.

As Karan notes, "testing is really a snapshot in time," so make sure guests test the day of the actual gathering if at all possible. That's because if a person was just exposed and the virus is still incubating, a person can test negative one day and positive the next.

Rapid antigen tests aren't cheap, however. Even the most inexpensive one will cost you around $12 per test — if you can find one. The Biden administration this week announced plans to address that: People with private health insurance will now be able to get reimbursed for the cost of at-home tests, and health clinics will offer free tests to the uninsured. In the meantime, if you have to ration, Gandhi suggests prioritizing testing anyone who isn't vaccinated or is vaccinated but showing symptoms.

If the weather allows, it wouldn't hurt to move the party outdoors, says Vaishampayan. At the very least, think about ways to improve ventilation indoors — by opening windows as temperatures allow, for example.

And if you're a guest who's immunocompromised, keep toward well-ventilated areas and mask up unless you're eating or drinking, Gandhi says. Or consider skipping large gatherings, says Karan. "If you have a high-risk person at home, this is probably not the time to have a large gathering because vaccines here don't completely stop transmission, they just reduce the chance it can happen," Karan says.

Should I hold off on dining indoors at restaurants?

There's not a clear-cut answer for everyone or every situation, says Wu. "I really just assess each situation individually," he says. You should consider transmission levels in your community, whether there's good ventilation, and most of all, your risk level or that of people you live with or spend time with.

Wu says that when he has a social appointment at a restaurant, "I quickly assess how crowded it is, how good is the ventilation, and if it seems risky, and I can pass, I certainly will."

Karan says if you really want to play it safe, skip the indoor dining until scientists know more about omicron. If you do decide to dine indoors, he says get boosted for added protection. But his best advice? "Be conservative right now."

Early South Africa data hints Omicron may cause less severe Covid, but more research needed [STAT, 4 Dec 2021]

By Helen Branswell

As the world waits for studies that give a clear picture of the Omicron variant, early clinical data emerging from South Africa hint at a virus that may cause less severe cases of Covid-19.
The South African Medical Research Council posted a report Saturday of the early experiences at several hospitals in Gauteng Province, where Omicron was first spotted in the country.
Strikingly, most hospitalized patients who tested positive for Covid did not need supplemental oxygen. Few developed Covid pneumonia, few required high-level care, and fewer still were admitted to intensive care.

Experts caution against reading too much into these early reports, which are based on small numbers of patients. They suggest it will take time for the true profile of the Omicron variant to come into focus. But several note that while early discussions about previous variants of concern have hinged on trying to figure out whether they caused more severe disease, with Omicron the questions relate to whether it is associated with milder infections.

The report included an analysis of 42 Covid patients in the hospital on Dec. 2 which showed that most were actually hospitalized for other medical reasons; their infections were only detected because hospitals are testing all incoming patients for Covid. Many did not have respiratory symptoms. And the average length of hospital stay was 2.8 days, far shorter than the average of 8.5 days recorded in the region over the past 18 months, the report said.

“The relatively low number of Covid-19 pneumonia hospitalizations in the general, high care and ICU wards constitutes a very different picture compared to the beginning of previous waves,” said the report, authored by Fareed Abdullah, director of the SAMRC’s office of AIDS and TB research.

Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy, told STAT he has “really been impressed by the relative lack of severe illness” seen with Omicron so far. “We’re just not seeing the number of patients that have been seen in previous surges who are seriously ill, even this soon into the surge.”

Amesh Adalja, an expert on emerging infectious disease and pandemic preparedness at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security, said more data are needed but the early indications are “very intriguing.”

“It’s part of a trend of anecdotal reports that we’re hearing that the clinical spectrum seems to be more mild, especially in vaccinated people,” he said.

It appears that the Omicron variant may be more transmissible than past variants of the virus, potentially even the highly transmissible Delta variant. But it was only identified within the past couple of weeks and still makes up only a tiny fraction of cases worldwide, so drawing conclusions at this point is a risky business.

The SAMRC report focused primarily on the experience of the Steve Biko/Tshwane District Hospital Complex in Pretoria, an area in Gauteng Province where Omicron was first seen to be spreading. Covid cases in Tshwane District have risen rapidly in recent days, with nearly 10,000 cases reported from Nov. 29 to Dec. 3. While the National Institute for Communicable Diseases of South Africa has suggested most of the recent cases in Tshwane were caused by the Omicron variant, the hospital’s testing equipment cannot confirm that to be true for all of the cases it caught.

Of the 42 Covid patients in the hospital on Dec. 2, 70% did not need supplemental oxygen. Thirteen did require oxygen, including nine who were diagnosed with Covid pneumonia. The remaining four patients were on oxygen but for other illnesses; two, for instance, had been on home oxygen before their infections.

This is not the way things in the hospital looked at the start of the three previous Covid waves that South Africa has endured, Abdullah wrote. “The Covid ward was recognizable by the majority of patients being on some form of oxygen supplementation with the incessant sound of high flow nasal oxygen machines, or beeping ventilator alarms.”

Other hospitals in Gauteng are reporting similar statistics, the report stated. In Helen Joseph Hospital on Dec. 3, 31 of 37 Covid patients (83%) did not require supplemental oxygen. At Dr. George Mukhari Academic Hospital, 65 of 80 Covid patients (81%) didn’t require oxygen therapy; only one was on a ventilator.

Another potentially positive signal related to the clinical status of vaccinated people. Of the Covid patients in Steve Biko/Tshwane District Hospital Complex on Dec. 2, only six were known to have been vaccinated. Of nine people who had developed Covid pneumonia, eight were unvaccinated and one was a child.

“If the assumption that they provide (most likely mostly Omicron) is correct, there is an interesting observation in that there is a clear vaccination effect if you look at the data,” Marion Koopmans, head of virology at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, said in an email.

The report itself suggests as much. It notes that 80% of the people in hospital with Covid over the past two weeks were under the age of 50 — which was not the case in the three earlier Covid waves in the country. “It may be that this is a vaccination effect as 57% of people over the age of 50 have been vaccinated in the province compared to 34% in the 18-to-49-year group,” Abdullah wrote.

Koopmans agreed that to date most cases of Omicron seen in South Africa and elsewhere seem to involve mild disease, but she said it is too soon to be sure that will hold up as the virus moves into different demographic populations. “Only once we have seen this spread across age groups we will be able to tell,” she said.

Osterholm and others said it will be important, too, to watch how Omicron fares in places where the Delta variant is currently causing high levels of illness, as is the case in many parts of the United States and Europe presently.

And Peter Hotez, dean of Baylor College of Medicine’s national school of tropical medicine, said we’ll have to see what kind of illness Omicron triggers in other places before drawing conclusions.

“Potentially it means that the severity of illness is less with Omicron,” he acknowledged. “But I think we have to be very cautious about making any definitive statement. Right now, it’s an interesting anecdote as much as anything else. And we’ll see as Omicron accelerates in the United States whether if falls along a similar pattern.”

An early glimpse of omicron's threat: High transmission likely, but vaccines provide hope [USA TODAY, 4 Dec 2021]

By Elizabeth Weise & Karen Weintraub

(NEXSTAR) – There’s a lot we don’t yet know about the omicron variant of COVID-19, which is starting to spread around the world and has been detected multiple times here in the U.S.
There are signs out of South Africa it may cause different symptoms – but it’s too early to draw broad conclusions. It’s also not yet clear if it’s better at evading vaccine protection than previous variants.

But there’s one thing we keep hearing from the scientists who’ve gotten a close look at the omicron version of the virus: It’s really mutated.

“This is probably the most mutated virus we’d ever seen,” Alex Sigal told CBS News. Sigal leads a team of researchers working to learn more about omicron.

Lawrence Young, a virologist at the University of Warwick, described omicron as “the most heavily mutated version of the virus we have seen,” including potentially worrying changes never before seen all in the same virus.

More mutations don’t necessarily make a virus more dangerous, either. “In principle, mutations can also work against each other,” Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist in Seattle, told the New York Times.

But viruses, like other organisms, evolve over time to increase their chance of survival. A stronger virus, of course, is generally bad news for us people. That’s why scientists are initially concerned when they see a highly mutated virus.

Of omicron’s many mutations, about 30 of them are on a part of the virus called the spike protein. That concerns scientists because it could affect how transmissible the variant is.
Sharon Peacock, who has led genetic sequencing of COVID-19 in Britain at the University of Cambridge, said the data so far suggest the new variant has mutations “consistent with enhanced transmissibility,” but said that “the significance of many of the mutations is still not known.”

But scientists who’ve gotten a close look also note omicron lacks some of the mutations that delta has that make it highly contagious. There’s a chance the delta variant, the dominant strain in the U.S. right now, is still more transmissible than omicron, so omicron may never take off.

“That’s really the big question. You know, when it gets into a population that has Delta, is it going to out-compete or not out-compete?” Robert Garry, a virologist at Tulane University, told CNN.

In addition to mutations that make omicron more contagious, scientists are also looking at any mutations that might cause more severe disease or more easily evade the vaccines.

“There is currently no information to suggest that symptoms associated with omicron are different from those from other variants,” the World Health Organization said. It said there’s no evidence – yet – that COVID vaccines, tests and treatments are any less effective against omicron.

Some experts say that all of omicron’s mutations could mean that vaccine makers may have to adapt their products at some point. That also remains to be seen.

More than half of Omicron cases in the UK are among fully vaccinated people [New York Post, 4 Dec 2021]

By Dana Kennedy

Being double-vaxxed doesn’t always protect people from the Omicron variant, UK health officials said.

A total of 134 cases of Omicron were confirmed in the UK as of Friday night, the Guardian reported.

The quick spike in infections came amid a report from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) indicating that the first 22 Omicron cases in England were people that had gotten two shots of a coronavirus vaccine

Of those, 12 cases occurred more than 14 days after the individual had received at least two doses of vaccine. Two cases were more than 28 days after a first dose of vaccine. Six were unvaccinated, while two had no available data.

No one has died or been hospitalized yet among the new cases involving Omicron, the Guardian reported. But UKHSA officials issued a statement saying that “most of the cases have a specimen date that is very recent and that there is a lag between onset of infection and hospitalization and death.”

The UKHSA issued its highest “red” alert against the virus given its potential to evade both vaccine and naturally acquired immunity.

UKHSA also said Omicron could reduce the effectiveness of monoclonal antibody treatments.
In Scotland, Omicron cases increased by 16 in the past 24 hours to 29, a significant jump on the three cases identified the previous day.

Christmas party reveals how omicron COVID variant might spread [Deseret News, 4 Dec 2021]

By Herb Scribner

A Christmas party in Oslo, Norway, offered a smal clue into the omicron variant’s spread
A Christmas party in Norway might offer a clue, though anecdotal, about how the omicron variant may spread among fully vaccinated people.

The renewable-energy company Scatec AS A, which is based in Norway, recently hosted an annual holiday party among fully vaccinated people, who had to take a rapid test the day before the party, according to The Wall Street Journal.

• The party included about 120 people, some of whom had returned from South Africa, where the company has an ongoing project.

There were 60 coronavirus cases found after the party, Dr. Tine Ravlo, a chief physician involved with the cases, told The New York Times.
• Somewhere between 15 and 20 people tested positive for the omicron variant.
• “We are expecting more of them to likely be Omicron infections,” Ravlo said.
• It is unclear if the patients suffered from mild symptoms or not.

This small party represents what the omicron variant could potentially bring to the world if it continues to spread. It fits along with other reports that fully vaccinated people can be infected by the coronavirus variant, even if cases have been mild so far, as I wrote for the Deseret News.

• For example, Dr. Angelique Coetzee, who sounded the alarm on the omicron variant, told BBC Sunday that fully vaccinated omicron patients have only showed mild COVID-19 symptoms so far.

Omicron possibly more infectious because it shares genetic code with common cold coronavirus, study says [The Washington Post, 4 Dec 2021]

By Amy Cheng

A traveler from South Africa is tested for the coronavirus in the Netherlands. (Peter Boer/Bloomberg News)

The omicron variant is likely to have picked up genetic material from another virus that causes the common cold in humans, according to a new preliminary study, prompting one of its authors to suggest omicron could have greater transmissibility but lower virulence than other variants of the coronavirus.

Researchers from Nference, a Cambridge, Mass.-based firm that analyzes biomedical information, sequenced omicron and found a snippet of genetic code that is also present in a virus that can bring about a cold. They say this particular mutation could have occurred in a host simultaneously infected by SARS-CoV-2, also known as the novel coronavirus, and the HCoV-229E coronavirus, which can cause the common cold. The shared genetic code with HCoV-229E has not been detected in other novel coronavirus variants, the scientists said.

The study is in preprint and has not been peer-reviewed.

The “striking” similarity between omicron and HCoV-229E could have made the former “more accustomed to human hosts” and likely to evade some immune system responses, said Venky Soundararajan, a biological engineer who co-wrote the study.

“By virtue of omicron adopting this insertion … it is essentially taking a leaf out of the seasonal coronaviruses’ page, which [explains] … how it lives and transmits more efficiently with human beings,” he said.

Researchers have established that SARS-CoV-2, which is responsible for the disease known as covid-19, can infect patients who are also afflicted by other coronaviruses. Cells in lungs and gastrointestinal systems could host both types of viruses, said Soundararajan, possibly leading to an exchange in genetic material.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says health experts are studying how often patients simultaneously suffer from covid and other respiratory illnesses.

While much remains unknown about omicron, health experts are worried that its many mutations could make it far more transmissible than variants such as delta. In South Africa, the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases said Wednesday that omicron overtook other virus variants in November, accounting for 74 percent of the genomes sequenced last month.

Maryland announces first three cases of omicron variant in the greater Washington region
Delta had previously been dominant in that country, where daily infection numbers have roughly quadrupled over the past four days. Anthony S. Fauci, the top U.S. infectious-diseases expert, told Bloomberg TV on Friday that it was “comforting but not definitive” that the rapid increase in South Africa’s caseload has not yet been followed by a comparable surge in hospitalizations, adding that there could be a time lag.

Nference researchers last year sequenced the novel coronavirus and found that part of its genetic code “mimics” a protein that helps regulate salt and fluid balance in the human body. That development aided efforts to design drugs that combat viral transmission.
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As a virus evolves to become more transmissible, it generally “loses” traits that are likely to cause severe symptoms, Soundararajan said. But he noted that much more data and analysis of omicron was needed before a definitive determination could be made, adding that unequal distribution of vaccines globally could lead to further mutations of the coronavirus.

As Fauci warned Friday that there was “absolutely … community spread” in the United States, President Biden said the country must support global efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus, especially as new variants emerge, “in order to beat covid” at home.

“Look what’s happened. … We’re starting to make some real progress, and you find out there’s another strain,” Biden added, noting that his administration had shipped millions of vaccines worldwide to people in need.

Prior coronavirus infections may not protect well against Omicron [Axios, 4 Dec 2021]

By Caitlin Owens

New data from South Africa suggests the Omicron variant spreads more than twice as quickly as the Delta variant, and that immunity from prior infection doesn't appear to protect a person very well against Omicron variant.

Why it matters: The findings are extremely preliminary, and there are still many open questions about how well vaccines work against the variant. But these initial breadcrumbs of data are helping the world begin to understand what it's up against.

Where it stands: It's going to be a while before we can draw any firm conclusions about Omicron.

• Until then, scientists will be racing to piece together whatever information they have, and policymakers will then have to make real-time decisions about how to apply that imperfect information.

Driving the news: A South African preprint study released Thursday — which hasn't yet been peer-reviewed — found that reinfection is around three times more likely with Omicron than it was with other variants.

• The study makes no assessment of whether Omicron can also escape vaccine-induced immunity or how well prior infections protect against severe disease.
• South African researchers also released an initial assessment, which also had not yet been peer-reviewed, of how fast Omicron is spreading compared to Delta. The variant's ability to get past the body's immune system is part of what's driving the variant's rapid spread, the NYT reports.

Experts caution that it's way too early to know for sure, but there are some signs that Omicron may not cause more severe disease than the other variants. Under the best-case scenario, it'd cause milder illness.

The bottom line: This early information underscores the importance of getting vaccinated, even if you've already had COVID.

With so many unknowns about omicron, when will we have answers? [ABC News, 4 Dec 2021]

By Dr. Esra Demirel

Learning if this version of COVID is deadlier could take many months.

The latest COVID-19 variant of concern, omicron, first reported to the World Health Organization from South Africa last week -- and now detected throughout the U.S. -- continues to worry many Americans with still much unknown about the virus.

Health authorities continue to urge calm as scientists across the globe search for answers.
"Right now, we're really in a state of knowledge acquisition," said Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Massachusetts. "We really need to know more. We need to know how pathogenic it is. We need to know how transmissible it is and we need to know whether or not it evades antibody responses induced by the vaccines."

Experts caution that answers to those questions may not come for months.

"What's going to happen is our band of confidence is going to narrow over time as opposed to saying in this amount of time we will have an answer. And that's what we have to recognize," said John Brownstein, epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital. "We just need to have some patience," Brownstein added.

When will we know about omicron transmission?

Researchers, however, expect to have estimates for transmissibility "probably ahead of some of the other questions that we have," said Brownstein.

In a press conference Wednesday, WHO COVID technical lead, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, said there is some suggestion omicron may be more transmissible but it's too early to say definitively. "We expect to have more information on transmission within days, not necessarily weeks," Van Kerkhove said.

"Based on the data collected through surveillance, we have a rough estimation of the proportion of infections that relate to omicron where you can start to make basic estimates of transmissibility very quickly," said Brownstein.

During the White House COVID-19 briefing on Friday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House's chief medical adviser, said as more omicron cases are detected, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be able to model how the new variant will spread, similar to how quickly CDC predicted the delta variant would spread from the initial 3% to 4% of cases to nearly all cases.

"We really don't know what's going to happen, how well it is going to compete or not compete with delta, but we will know as more cases occur and what the doubling time of the relative percentage of omicron versus delta will be," Fauci said.

When will we know how effective current COVID-19 vaccines are on omicron?

The Food and Drug Administration said in a statement on Tuesday it is working "as quickly as possible" to evaluate the potential impact of omicron on current treatments, vaccines and tests and said it expects to have answers in the next few weeks.

If a modification to current vaccines is necessary, vaccine manufacturers say they are prepared to make those modifications quickly.

In a statement on Sunday, Pfizer and BioNTech said they have been monitoring the effectiveness of their vaccine against emerging variants and if a "vaccine-escape variant emerges" they expect to be able to make a "tailor-made vaccine against that variant in approximately 100 days, subject to regulatory approval."

Matt Barrows, Moderna's senior director of manufacturing told ABC News that the company has the capacity to produce an omicron-specific booster vaccine within a month if it becomes necessary. He said experiments testing the efficacy of their current vaccine against omicron are ongoing and will take at least two to three weeks.

“Although we haven't proven it yet, there's every reason to believe that if you get vaccinated and boosted that you would have at least some degree of cross protection, very likely against severe disease, even against the Omicron variant,” said Fauci.

When will we know if omicron causes more serious illness?

Learning if this version of the virus is deadlier could take many months, experts say.

"We don't even know if omicron will have the ability to overtake delta and we're dealing with a delta surge right now. There's a lot of ifs and a lot of open questions," said Brownstein.
Currently, the delta variant is driving nearly all cases across the U.S., with 99.9% of cases in the country from the delta variant.

Health officials are encouraged by the mild symptoms the omicron cases are experiencing so far. According to health officials, the man who tested positive for omicron in Minnesota is fully vaccinated and had been boosted in early November. The woman identified in Colorado is also reported to be experiencing only mild symptoms and was fully vaccinated, however not boosted.

Early cases identified in South Africa have also reported no severe disease according to local officials. "Right now it does not look like there's a big signal of a high degree of severity, but it's too early to tell," said Fauci, in an interview with CNN.

As of today, there are more than 400 confirmed cases of Omicron in over 30 countries across the globe, including in the US. As scientists work on getting more answers, experts are urging to not wait and get vaccinated or boosted if eligible.

"As it stands now with the information we have, you do the best with the information you have in front of you and that information says that you get an incredible advantage by getting that booster," said Brownstein.

Barouch said that the only way to stop new variants is to vaccinate people across the globe.
On Friday, the White House announced that it's shipping out 11 million more vaccines worldwide in an effort to increase vaccination around the world. The U.S. has shipped 291 million doses so far and President Joe Biden announced plans Thursday to provide 200 million more doses worldwide in the next 3 months.

"Currently, sub-Saharan Africa has less than a seven percent vaccination rate. And so it's not a surprise that new variants are emerging in that part of the world," Barouch said. "The only way to stop these variants is to have a widespread vaccination campaign that really reaches all four corners of the planet."

Omicron COVID-19 cases spreading at alarming rate in South Africa [NPR, 4 Dec 2021]

By EYDER PERALTA

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
We turn now to South Africa where COVID is spreading fast - at a rate not seen since the beginning of the pandemic. Scientists say the surge is due to the omicron variant, which was first identified there and in Botswana in November. NPR's Eyder Peralta is in Cape Town. Eyder, thanks for being with us.

EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.

SIMON: How huge a rise are we talking about?

PERALTA: I mean, if you look at that curve, it shows an almost vertical spike in cases. And to give you some numbers, on November 16, the seven-day moving average of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases was 332. And now that number is more than 4,800. And scientists here are saying that that is unprecedented. It's a much faster acceleration that we've seen in the previous three waves. And this is happening across the country at the same time - in every province, in every major city. And most of these cases are the omicron variant.

SIMON: And at the same time, what are scientists learning from this wave and all the cases?

PERALTA: Yeah, I spoke to Dr. Juliet Pulliam, who directs a modeling center here at Stellenbosch University. And she and her team were one of the first to say that this new variant seemed highly infectious. And in a new preprint paper that they published yesterday, they found that it has a remarkable ability to get past the antibodies that people form when they have COVID.

So South African scientists throughout this whole pandemic have been very realistic from the start. They said this would be long. And very early, they said that herd immunity was just a mirage. The vaccination program, however, was just getting up to speed right now. And many people have already had COVID here in South Africa. So I think everyone was hoping that maybe this summer - we're headed into summer here - would be the beginning of the end of COVID. And I think a lot of people thought that they had this figured out. I asked Dr. Pulliam if this will ever actually end, and here's what she told me.

JULIET PULLIAM: I have no idea. I wish I knew. After the delta wave, I was very relaxed (laughter) and I sort of thought we had a while. Like, I wasn't sure there wasn't going to be a fourth wave, but I didn't think it would be this fast. And it's just come out of nowhere and hit us.

PERALTA: Hit us hard, she says. And this is still uncharted territory, and so her advice is simple. Until we know more about the omicron variant, you should be as careful as you can.

SIMON: Based on the cases we've been able to see so far, do we know whether this variant differs from some of the others in terms of who it affects?

PERALTA: I mean, one of the concerning early pieces of data that we're seeing is that people under 40 are getting infected at higher rates. And health authorities have also found that in Gauteng province, kids below the age of 2 are being hospitalized at a much higher level than in previous waves. But they don't know why. Does it mean that kids are more susceptible to this virus? Or are doctors admitting healthy kids because there's enough beds? We just don't know the answers to those questions yet.

SIMON: Eyder, how are South Africans bearing up?

PERALTA: You know, the country and the people as a whole have been really good at handling this pandemic. They've been a model, really. People wear masks, and the government has put in place some of the most Draconian lockdowns in the world. But this is also a country that has been the hardest hit in sub-Saharan Africa. And this was supposed to be the first normal summer in two years here. And I think at this point, as this wave accelerates, people are thinking the government will impose new lockdowns. And I think everyone is sort of depressed. And it seems certain that everything will be anything but normal, right? And South Africans I've talked to in my regular life, they're just - they're sick of this. And some don't know if they'll survive this new wave economically.

SIMON: NPR's Eyder Peralta in Cape Town, thanks so much.

PERALTA: Thank you, Scott.

With omicron looming over the holidays, here's how to stay safe [NPR, 4 Dec 2021]

By MARIA GODOY

Here we go again.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to almost normal times, a new, highly mutated variant of the coronavirus has reared its ugly head in the U.S.

Scientists say it's still too soon to know whether the omicron variant causes more or less severe disease, though early evidence does suggest it's better at evading the immune system than previous strains. And, omicron has raised several red flags that suggest it could be the most transmissible variant yet.

All this has many people wondering whether it's time to change our behavior for safety's sake.
The good news is, you don't have to hibernate like it's 2020. Experts note we're in a much different place than we were last winter, with COVID-19 vaccines and boosters now widely available. There's good hope that the current vaccines offer protection against severe disease with omicron.

That said, if this pandemic has taught us anything, it's that when you don't know what you're dealing with, "we should invoke the precautionary principle," says Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician at Stanford University.

In other words, don't panic, but do be thoughtful about what risks you want to take.

We spoke to several infectious disease experts for advice on living in the age of omicron. But remember: Things are changing quickly, so stay alert. Public health advice may change as we learn more.

Should I be masking again indoors, even in places where masks are not required?

If you're not vaccinated, mask up indoors — and please, get your shots, experts agree. For the vaccinated, you should be wearing masks if you are at higher risk of severe disease because of your age or underlying health conditions — or if you spend time with people who are vulnerable. We know that vaccines aren't always as protective among older people and the immunocompromised.

"The things that we've gotten tired of doing, we need to keep doing, especially masking up in indoor places," says Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That advice would hold true even without the omicron variant, says Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, "because we still have [delta] cases circulating in this country."

While you don't generally need to wear a mask outdoors, it makes sense to if you're in a crowd and you don't know the vaccination status of the people around you, said Dr. Julie Vaishampayan, chair of the public health committee of the Infectious Disease Society of America, during a media briefing Thursday.

Do I need to upgrade to N95, KN95 or similar highly protective mask?

While three-ply cloth masks or surgical masks do a good job at preventing the wearer from spreading infectious particles if they fit snugly and offer the wearer some protection as well, many experts think it would be better to use an N95 or KN95 respirator in crowded indoor public spaces.

This is especially key if you're high risk. "If people around you aren't wearing masks and you are older or you have a weakened immune system, then you should consider upping your mask game and using an N95 mask," says Frieden.

Stanford University's Karan suggests people with other underlying conditions that put them at higher risk — such as obesity, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes — should also consider upgrading to a high-quality N95 or KN95 mask.

And, if you live with people who are at risk, consider upgrading your mask as well, Karan says. Double masking with a surgical mask topped by a cloth mask will also boost your protection, notes Gandhi.

Should I cancel my holiday travel plans?

Not necessarily just yet, but do be very thoughtful about them, says Dr. Henry Wu, director of Emory TravelWell Center and an associate professor of infectious diseases at Emory University School of Medicine. "Anyone who's thinking of traveling should pause and consider both your own risk, as well as certain other practical issues about your destination."

For starters, the U.S. is now requiring all travelers entering the U.S., including Americans returning home, to be tested for the coronavirus no more than one day before departure. If you're in another country, you'll have to make sure you know where to get a test that qualifies within that time frame, which could be a logistical headache.

And remember, the situation on the ground is changing, so keep a watch on the CDC's travel notices. "You certainly want to avoid traveling to countries that are in the midst of a surge and potentially have overwhelmed health systems. You certainly don't want to risk needing to go to an overcrowded hospital if you have your own health problems, COVID or not," Wu says.

Domestic travelers aren't required to test before flying, but it's still a good idea to do so before departure and after arrival — especially if you are visiting someone in a high-risk group. That's what Wu plans to do when he visits his elderly parents in Hawaii next week. "I will, even though it's not required, test myself before my trip and I think I'll bring some self- test kits when I get home, just to be even more sure that I'm not infectious at that time," he says.

If you're unvaccinated, over the age of 65 or have medical conditions that put you at higher risk of severe disease with COVID-19, you should seriously reconsider if now is a good time to travel, Wu says.

And of course, if you do fly or take public transport to your destination, wear a high-quality, snug-fitting mask like an N95 or KN95.

With all the concern that omicron might evade our vaccines, should I bother to get a booster?

The Biden administration came out this week urging people once again to get a booster to help protect against omicron. The recommendation is in line with recent science showing that boosters raise your antibody levels.

A recent preprint study even showed that getting a third dose of the mRNA vaccines could "generate a much broader immune response," says Dr. Kavita Patel, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution and a primary care physician. This could give broader coverage against a variant like omicron she says, "which is why I think you're hearing a number of us, many doctors, public health folks, scientists saying boosters do matter."

Paul Bieniasz is a virologist at Rockefeller University who studies how the immune system response broadens over time, and he concurs. "I'm somebody who's been vaccinated three times, and I think that that's absolutely the right way to go," he says.

"I think anyone who is around immunocompromised individuals should absolutely be ensured that they boost," Gandhi says. "I was actually not going to get a booster because I was protesting global vaccine equity. And I just received one because I need to be around my immunocompromised father."

Is it safe to have a large, indoor social gathering, like a holiday party? Should guests all test in advance?

Safety is important, but so is gathering with loved ones at this time of year, and there are steps you can take to lower the risks for everyone. "What we need to do is add more layers of protection," says Vaishampayan.

First, says Karan, make sure everyone present has gotten a COVID-19 vaccine and booster shot if they're eligible.

If you have access to rapid antigen tests, have your guests take one, especially if they're traveling from other parts of the country. "That's a great way to prevent somebody who is infected from coming in and infecting somebody else," Dr. Carlos Del Rio, an infectious disease specialist at Emory University, told reporters this week.

As Karan notes, "testing is really a snapshot in time," so make sure guests test the day of the actual gathering if at all possible. That's because if a person was just exposed and the virus is still incubating, a person can test negative one day and positive the next.

Rapid antigen tests aren't cheap, however. Even the most inexpensive one will cost you around $12 per test — if you can find one. The Biden administration this week announced plans to address that: People with private health insurance will now be able to get reimbursed for the cost of at-home tests, and health clinics will offer free tests to the uninsured. In the meantime, if you have to ration, Gandhi suggests prioritizing testing anyone who isn't vaccinated or is vaccinated but showing symptoms.

If the weather allows, it wouldn't hurt to move the party outdoors, says Vaishampayan. At the very least, think about ways to improve ventilation indoors — by opening windows as temperatures allow, for example.

And if you're a guest who's immunocompromised, keep toward well-ventilated areas and mask up unless you're eating or drinking, Gandhi says. Or consider skipping large gatherings, says Karan. "If you have a high-risk person at home, this is probably not the time to have a large gathering because vaccines here don't completely stop transmission, they just reduce the chance it can happen," Karan says.

Should I hold off on dining indoors at restaurants?

There's not a clear-cut answer for everyone or every situation, says Wu. "I really just assess each situation individually," he says. You should consider transmission levels in your community, whether there's good ventilation, and most of all, your risk level or that of people you live with or spend time with.

Wu says that when he has a social appointment at a restaurant, "I quickly assess how crowded it is, how good is the ventilation, and if it seems risky, and I can pass, I certainly will."

Karan says if you really want to play it safe, skip the indoor dining until scientists know more about omicron. If you do decide to dine indoors, he says get boosted for added protection. But his best advice? "Be conservative right now."

Omicron COVID-19 variant found in 11 states as Delta variant cases are rising [CBS News, 4 Dec 2021]

By Alexander Tin

At least 32 cases of the Omicron COVID-19 variant have been reported across 11 states — 7 cases in California, 1 in New Jersey in a Georgia resident, 1 in Utah, 2 in Colorado, 1 in Missouri, 1 in Pennsylvania, 3 in Maryland, 6 in Nebraska, 1 in Hawaii, 8 in New York and 1 in Minnesota.

The biggest question is whether current, available vaccines will prevent severe cases spread by the Omicron variant.

So far, the handful of known cases in the U.S. have been reported by health officials as mild and in vaccinated people. But with so few cases, there's not enough evidence yet on what to expect from Omicron.

It's still cases from the Delta variant that have officials' attention, Tom Hanson reports for "CBS Saturday Morning."

COVID cases driven by the Delta variant are rising, averaging 96,000 new cases a day and hitting hard in the Upper Midwest to New England. New Hampshire led the country in new cases per capita last week

"99.9% of cases in the country right now are from the Delta variant," said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

When it comes to the Omicron variant, health officials are counseling calm.

"We are equipped and prepared to fight the Omicron variant head on," Walensky said.

"There's every reason to believe that if you get vaccinated and boosted, that you would have at least some degree of cross-protection, very likely against severe disease, even against the Omicron variant," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to the president.

But Omicron spreads twice as fast as the Delta variant, and this week, mild cases of the strain, first identified in South Africa, popped up in multiple states including Maryland, where Governor Larry Hogan had just announced an aggressive partnership to find COVID cases fast.
"The state entered into agreements with both Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland to more than double our already aggressive real-time variant surveillance," he said this week.

International travelers will be required to take a COVID test one day before boarding a flight to the U.S. from a country where Omicron has been detected. Once they arrive, many airports have on-site testing.

More than two dozens countries have identified cases with the Omicron strain.

"Now is not the time to relax," said Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Letitia Dzirasa.
"We're seeing this variant of concern and the way to address variants is to slow COVID transmission, and we do that through vaccination, we do that through masking."

How Many States Is Omicron in Now? [The New York Times, 4 Dec 2021]

By Alexandra E. Petri

At least two dozen cases of people infected with the highly mutated Omicron variant of the coronavirus had been reported in 12 states by Saturday morning.

Most of the cases appeared to be people who had traveled to South Africa recently, though the infected person in Hawaii had not traveled outside of his state, and, in Minnesota, a vaccinated man who had traveled to an anime convention in New York City tested positive.
Regardless, health officials were bracing for the inevitable community spread of the variant.
None of the Omicron cases reported so far in the United States have resulted in serious illness, hospitalization or death.

Even as concerns about the Omicron variant intensified, top federal health officials said that for now the Delta variant remained a greater threat to Americans.

“I know the news is focused on Omicron, but we should remember that 99.9 percent of cases in the country right now are from the Delta variant,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a press briefing on Friday. “Delta continues to drive cases across the country, especially in those that are unvaccinated.”

About 95,000 cases were being reported in the United States every day, compared with about 12,000 per day six months ago. States in the Midwest are recording some of the biggest spikes, while New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota lead the country in recent cases per capita.

On Friday, state health officials confirmed three cases in Maryland, all in the Baltimore area. Two of the cases are from the same household and include a vaccinated individual who had recently traveled to South Africa and an unvaccinated person who was deemed a close contact. The third case is unrelated, and the patient, who was vaccinated, has no known recent travel history.

Officials in Philadelphia said that they had found one case, a man in his 30s. The sole case identified in Utah was a vaccinated individual who had just returned from South Africa. In Missouri, officials identified a case linked to domestic travel.

Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey said that a fully vaccinated woman who had recently traveled to South Africa tested positive for the Omicron variant after being treated at an emergency department in northern New Jersey. She was in isolation with mild symptoms, officials said.

On Thursday, officials in New York State announced that they had confirmed five cases of the variant: a 67-year-old woman in Suffolk County who returned from South Africa; two residents of Queens; one resident of Brooklyn; and another person in New York City who had traveled recently. The vaccination status of most of the individuals remained unknown.

A vaccinated Colorado resident who had recently returned from southern Africa was that state’s first confirmed case. California reported a second case — the first being in San Francisco on Wednesday — in Los Angeles County. The infected person had been vaccinated and had traveled to South Africa in November.

The authorities in Nebraska on Friday said that of the six cases involving the Omicron variant found there, only one was in a vaccinated person. One of the infected people had returned from Nigeria on Nov. 23, they said, and the other five were likely exposed through household contact. None had required hospitalization.

An Oahu resident with no history of travel is the first Omicron case in Hawaii.

“This is a case of community spread,” the state’s department of health said in a news release.
The individual had previously been infected with the coronavirus but was never vaccinated.

Omicron Variant May Be Good For Economy [Forbes, 4 Dec 2021]

By Bill Conerly

The omicron variant of Covid-19 has sparked great fear. With time, we may find the fear to have been justified, but we may find the opposite: that this is good news for the economy.

It’s still early days for our knowledge of omicron. Waiting to learn more seems to make sense, but consider this: Business decisions are being made every day. Any person who waits for perfect certainty—about the economy, technology or Covid-19—will never make a single decision. In many areas decisions have to be made this week. So it’s worthwhile to consider how omicron may be good for the economy.

Omicron seems to be displacing the delta variant in South Africa. Ted Wenseleers showed that delta’s share of total Covid-19 cases in South Africa has plummeted while omicron has surged. Because the early indications show that omicron was highly transmissible, it could well displace the delta variant around the world.

So far omicron has triggered a surge in infections in South Africa, but not a comparable increase in deaths. There’s good reason for the virus to mutate to be less dangerous. Bugs that kill their hosts don’t replicate as much as bugs that allow their hosts to remain alive. Many viruses in the past have evolved to be milder. We cannot take this idea too far, however.

The omicron virus may have mutated so that it has greater ability to infect those who already had been exposed to earlier variants. That’s no surprise to South African scientists, who have observed a very high past infection rate in their population. The virus could not get ahead by finding people never exposed to any version of Covid-19, so it found a way to infect the previously ill, this theory goes.

BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin said recently that current vaccines probably help protect against severe illness from the omicron variant, and that new vaccines are under development that would be more targeted against omicron. Given the speed with which our vaccines were developed, we may have new versions being tested in the lab right now. The question will be how long we have to wait for regulatory approval.

Immigrants Hope Registry Saves Immigration Bill

From an economic forecasting viewpoint, business leaders should consider the upside potential of omicron. Although it is way too early to be sure, we may find that the disease becomes dominated by a less dangerous mutation. Illness would continue if this happens, but with fewer deaths and hospitalizations. People would come to feel more comfortable dining out, traveling and seeking routine non-Covid healthcare tests and procedures. The rosy view is far from certain, but current evidence is not more pessimistic.

Companies that that are especially sensitive to the Covid pandemic should try to delay big decisions. We’ll have better information in the coming weeks. But decisions that cannot be delayed should probably consider the possibility of a stronger economy rather than greater Covid problems.

New York Omicron cases rise to eight as official warns of community spread [The Guardian, 4 Dec 2021]

Cases of latest Covid variant appear unrelated as state dispatches national guard to help beleaguered hospitals

New York announced three more cases of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus on Saturday, bringing the number of state cases linked to the new variant to eight.

“The Omicron variant is here, and as anticipated we are seeing the beginning of community spread,” the state health commissioner, Mary Bassett, said.

Seven of the cases have been found in New York City and one in Suffolk county.

The arrival of Omicron comes as hospitals statewide strain under a surge in coronavirus cases, most traced to the Delta variant, along with staffing shortages.

The number of people testing positive statewide each day for the virus has doubled in the last 30 days.

Governor Kathy Hochul has authorized the health department to limit non-essential, non-urgent procedures at hospitals close to running out of beds and deployed national guard teams to relieve healthcare workers at facilities dealing with staffing issues and surging caseloads.

Fifteen members of the national guard arrived at Monroe community hospital in Rochester on Saturday, WROC reported. The lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, said on Wednesday the state would send 13 national guard teams to the western New York county, where the county executive, Adam Bello, has declared a state of emergency.

New York’s Omicron cases so far appear unrelated, Hochul said. One of the known cases involved a man from Minnesota who was among 50,000 people who attended a three-day anime festival in New York in November.

Authorities have urged anyone who attended the conference to get tested for Covid-19 and wear a mask in public.

Much remains unknown about Omicron, including whether it is more contagious, as some health authorities suspect, whether it can thwart vaccines and whether it makes people as sick as the original strain.

The variant has been detected in states including Nebraska, Minnesota, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Utah, Missouri, New Jersey and Georgia.

“We knew the Omicron variant was coming and we expect to see more cases. But let me be clear: we are not defenseless,” Hochul said. “We have the tools to help prevent the spread of this deadly virus: get your vaccine, get your booster, and wear your mask.”

Six more U.S. states find Omicron cases, Delta still top U.S. coronavirus threat [Reuters, 4 Dec 2021]

WASHINGTON, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Six more U.S. states confirmed infections of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 on Friday but the Delta strain likely remains a greater threat as winter sets in and Americans gather for the holidays, experts said.

New Jersey, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Utah each reported their first cases of the Omicron variant on Friday. Missouri was awaiting CDC confirmation of a case involving a St. Louis resident who had recently traveled within the United States.

Scientists are still investigating the impact of the highly contagious Omicron variant, which was first detected in South Africa. Early evidence has suggested it may cause milder illness than its predecessors, including Delta.

The outbreak of Omicron has made worldwide headlines and prompted political leaders to impose new COVID-19 restrictions. But the predominant U.S. strain remains Delta, Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a briefing at the White House.

The Utah case was discovered through ongoing genetic sequencing of positive COVID-19 samples at the state laboratory, the state's health department said on Twitter.

Nebraska had six confirmed cases, the state's health department said. Only one of the six people was vaccinated and none have needed to be hospitalized with COVID-19, the department added.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced the first three cases of the Omicron variant in his state, adding that none of the three individuals were hospitalized. And in Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia man in his 30s tested positive for Omicron, city health officials said.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said the state's first Omicron case had been found in a fully-vaccinated woman who had recently traveled to Georgia.

A surge in infections could further strain U.S. hospitals already grappling with high case loads and fatigued staff, Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, told MSNBC.

"I'm very worried about our healthcare system over the next few weeks and few months. I don't know how much more it can handle," he said, urging reinforcements from the National Guard and other contingency plans to bolster doctors and nurses.

Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said states with higher vaccination rates would likely be better protected against Omicron, saying unvaccinated people who survived Delta could find their immunity is not protective against the new variant.

"The risk for the future is that states that are relying on a lot of Delta infections to provide immunity to their populations... they could be more susceptible to this new variant," Gottlieb, now a member of vaccine maker Pfizer's (PFE.N) board, told CNBC.

Omicron has been detected in about 40 countries, including the United States, where it has also been found in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Minnesota, and New York.

The CDC said it was investigating possible cases of the Omicron variant in other U.S. states.

Explainer: Could the Omicron variant bring milder illness? [Reuters, 4 Dec 2021]

Dec 3 (Reuters) - The Omicron variant, spreading now in southern Africa and detected in over 30 other countries, has prompted fears it could significantly undermine the effectiveness of vaccines against COVID-19.

Yet as scientists race to understand the full consequences of Omicron, some are also asking whether this new version of coronavirus might cause milder illness than its predecessors. While they caution that it is far too early to draw conclusions, here is what is known so far:

WHAT DO THE DATA SHOW?
Evidence from initial cases of the new variant is limited.

Among 70 cases reported in Europe that included information on disease severity, half of the patients had no symptoms and half had mild symptoms, according to a report on Thursday by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

There were no cases of severe disease, hospitalization, or death. However, the European agency said it would require data on hundreds of cases to accurately assess disease complications, estimating that could take several weeks. In addition, most cases detected in Europe so far have been in younger people who were fully vaccinated, making them less likely to suffer severe illness.

In South Africa, where the daily number of reported COVID-19 cases doubled on Wednesday to 8,561, symptoms for reinfected patients and those infected after vaccination appear to be mild.

"Some evidence from South Africa suggests that it may actually cause more mild illness but … I caution you that a lot of the patients South Africa initially were among young university students," Dr. Carlos Del Rio, an infectious diseases expert at Emory University in Atlanta, said on Thursday during an online briefing from the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

IS OMICRON A 'LESS FIT' VERSION OF CORONAVIRUS?
While data on real world infections continues to emerge, scientists are conducting laboratory studies to decipher Omicron. The variant has about 50 mutations not seen in combination before, including more than 30 mutations on the spike protein the coronavirus uses to attach to human cells. Vaccines in current use target that spike protein.

"Typically when viruses accumulate a lot of mutations they lose some fitness," said Dr. John Wherry, director of the Penn Institute for Immunology in Philadelphia. Certain Omicron mutations may impair the ability of the virus to cleave, changing the behavior of the spike protein, he said.

Some scientists have theorized Omicron may have developed over a period of months in an immunocompromised individual, such as an HIV patient in southern Africa. If so, "the virus adapted not to kill that host," Wherry said.

There are competing theories that the latest variant evolved from an animal host.

WILL OMICRON BECOME THE DOMINANT VARIANT?
The other central question surrounding Omicron is whether it will overtake the Delta variant, which still accounts for the overwhelming majority of known infections worldwide. If Omicron does become dominant, but causes milder illness, it could mark a turning point toward the virus eventually becoming a seasonal threat, like influenza, said Sumit Chanda, an infectious disease researcher at the Scripps Research Department of Immunology and Microbiology in San Diego.

The European Union's public health agency said on Thursday the Omicron variant could be responsible for more than half of all COVID-19 infections in Europe within a few months.

While the research into Omicron is underway, disease experts say people must remain vigilant against the coronavirus by getting either initial vaccinations or booster shots, as well as wearing masks in indoor or crowded settings, ventilating rooms and washing hands.