New Coronavirus News from 3 Dec 2021

South Korea Temporarily Re-Tightens Covid Restrictions [The New York Times, 3 Dec 2021]

By John Yoon

The country also confirmed its first cluster of the Omicron variant, in a church where two locally transmitted cases were found and 800 were being tested.

South Korean officials said on Friday that they would temporarily reverse the phased reopening they began last month, lowering the cap on group sizes for social gatherings and requiring proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test for entry to restaurants, cafes and other facilities starting next week.

The announcement by Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum came as nearly 80 percent of the country’s hospital beds for patients with severe illness were in use, and days after six cases of the Omicron variant were confirmed among inbound travelers.

On Friday, officials said that they had confirmed South Korea’s first Omicron cluster, one associated with a church.

At least two members of a church in the city of Incheon were confirmed to have the variant. They had worshiped alongside two travelers who tested positive after a trip to Nigeria, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said in a statement. Another 800 people who were potentially exposed are being tested.

Churches have been the site of previous major coronavirus outbreaks in South Korea, including one identified last month at a religious facility with 500 members in the city of Cheonan in which 445 cases have now been confirmed, more than 400 of them among unvaccinated people, the local authorities said.

In his announcement on Friday, Mr. Kim said that the government would limit private gatherings for four weeks. In and around Seoul, where gatherings have had a 10-person cap, the limit will be six; other areas had a limit of 12, which will be cut to eight.

Officials said they would also require everyone entering restaurants, cafes, cram schools, movie theaters, sports stadiums, museums and libraries to be fully vaccinated.

New daily cases in South Korea have surged steadily for the past two months, jumping from around 1,500 in mid-October to 5,266 on Thursday, the country’s highest level since the pandemic began.

“Our gradual recovery of daily life is now facing its most serious threat yet,” Mr. Kim said. “All pandemic indicators across the country are sending danger signals.”

Most of those hospitalized were unvaccinated, over the age of 60 or had pre-existing conditions, health officials have said. While 80 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated, rates for children have remained low, with only about 20 percent of those ages 12 to 17 fully inoculated, according to official statistics.

To encourage vaccinations among children, Mr. Kim said, South Korean officials will begin requiring vaccine passes for them starting in February.

South Korean officials have also tightened curbs at the border since they confirmed the first cases of the Omicron variant on Wednesday. On Friday, the government began halting quarantine exemptions for inbound travelers from all countries, and started requiring visitors to observe a 10-day quarantine period and take three rounds of P.C.R. tests after arrival.

U.S. Health Officials Project Resolve Against Omicron Variant [The New York Times, 3Dec 2021]

By Sharon LaFraniere

Fauci and other top U.S. health officials project resolve in fighting the Omicron variant.

Senior U.S. health officials on Friday sought to reassure an anxious public that the federal government is doing all it can to track and tamp down the spread of the new coronavirus variant, Omicron.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top medical adviser to President Biden, said at a press briefing that the scientists are closely monitoring the rate at which cases double to see whether Omicron will overtake Delta to become the dominant variant in the United States — and if so, when. The variant has now been detected in 10 states, though most cases involve returning travelers.
Within about two weeks, he said, “we’ll know more about transmission, immune evasion and severity of disease.”

He suggested that with the emergence of the new variant, which has multiple troubling mutations that have yet to be fully assessed, booster shots were even more important. He said that studies now indicated that a third dose of the vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna markedly increased recipients’ level of antibodies, and raised the levels of memory B and T cells. All three are important indicators of how well the immune system can protect against the coronavirus.

“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,” he said.

On Thursday, the day after the first reported case of an Omicron infection in the United States, more people got vaccinated than any day since May, according to Jeffrey D. Zients, President Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator. Mr. Zients said 2.2 million shots were administered, including more than one million booster shots.

While drawing conclusions from one-day totals is risky, especially when the holiday season could cause lags in reporting, Mr. Zients called the uptick “important progress.”

Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the nation is better equipped to fight the virus than it was a year ago, citing more prevention and treatment methods, and “more knowledge and experience from addressing other variants such as Delta.”

An omicron vocab lesson, from 'immune evasion' to 'outcompete' to 'epistasis' : Goats and Soda [NPR, 3 Dec 2021]

BY SHEILA ELDRED

Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at [e-mail] with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.

When I'm reading about the new omicron variant, I feel like I need a medical degree. What does "immune evasion" mean, exactly? Virus neutralization assay?! Help!

We get it: COVID-19 news happens fast, and those of us without a medical degree can feel a little lost. So we turned to three COVID-wise experts — Dr. Jill Weatherhead, assistant professor of adult and pediatric infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine; Dr. Greg Poland, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.; and Matthew Binnicker, Ph.D., vice chair of practice in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the Mayo Clinic — to help us translate some of the terms you're likely to run across.

So let's start with a quote from Weatherhead:

"The omicron variant has over 50 genetic mutations in the viral genome. Many of these mutations are found in the spike protein region," Weatherhead says. "Some of the individual mutations suggest that the omicron variant may be more transmissible or evade immune responses. Despite the association of these mutations with transmissibility and immune evasion, the clinical impact of omicron remains unknown because of the phenomenon of epistasis."

If you didn't quite catch all of that, here's a guide to help.

Mutation: A mutation is a change in a virus's genetic code. Mutations are a normal part of viral replication. Viruses make copies of themselves as they spread within a human. Mutations happen when a mistake is made during copying. In rare instances, mutations change the behavior of the virus. Most of the time, they don't.

Variant: In essence, a variant is a version of the virus with a slightly different genetic sequence because of the appearance of mutations. Many mutations quickly disappear as the virus spreads. But sometimes, mutations stick around and get passed down to future generations of the virus. Over time, the virus can accumulate a unique set of mutations that make it distinct from other versions of the virus. These distinct versions are called variants.

Variant of concern (VOC): The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention monitor variants and alert the public to variants of concern that could pose added risk because of "increased transmissibility, increased severity of disease or decreased effectiveness of public health interventions [diagnostic tests, preventive measures like vaccines or therapeutic measures like monoclonal antibodies]," Weatherhead explains.

Transmissibility: The ability of a virus to spread from infected people to others. The delta variant is more transmissible than previous variants because of mutations on its spike protein, which make it better at attaching to and infecting cells. There is concern that omicron could be even more transmissible than the highly transmissible delta variant, but we don't know yet whether that is the case.

Immune evasion: After an infection or a vaccine, your body produces antibodies that can detect and kill the virus upon a subsequent exposure. Sometimes a virus can mutate in a way that helps it evade or escape detection by those antibodies. That's what scientists call "immune evasion." There's preliminary evidence that omicron could be much better at immune evasion than the delta variant or any other variant before it because of the specific mutations on its spike protein.

Outcompete: In sports, if you outcompete other athletes by getting to the finish line first or scoring more points, you're No. 1. In the world of viruses, winning is more akin to the reality show Survivor; viruses can evolve to infect more people — or to infect them faster — than previous variants and become No. 1. "It's basically survival of the fittest," Binnicker explains. "Delta showed us it was king of the hill. We'll have to see over the next two to four weeks if omicron is better at transmitting than delta." If it is, it will likely push delta out of many regions of the world and could become the dominate variant.

Epistasis: The Greek roots of this word mean "standing upon." So what does that have to do with viruses? Well, in genetics, the term describes how mutations depend on each other. The way an individual mutation makes a virus behave often depends on what other mutations are present. That's why scientists can't look at a single mutation and know exactly how it will change a virus — mutations need to be assessed together. Think of it as cheerleaders standing on each other: Any movement by one of them often affects the entire formation.

Virus neutralization assay (VNA): OK, let's take this apart. An assay is a test. Neutralization is a term familiar to those who love science fiction. If you neutralize an attack from an alien ship, you've won! In the world of viruses, we want to know if antibodies can stop — or neutralize — a virus particle. And the way to find out is a VNA: a lab test that measures the capability and magnitude of a human's antibodies to stop infection. This test can be used to determine how well one part of the immune system is working to prevent or clear an infection. Scientists can use it to estimate how well a vaccine may work.

Hybrid immunity: Scientists say a person has "hybrid immunity" if the person was infected with SARS-CoV-2 and then, at least six months later, received a COVID-19 vaccine. This scenario triggers high levels of antibodies and strong protection against variants. Some scientists have called it "super-immunity."

Spike protein: You've probably seen more than enough pictures of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The spike protein creates the bumps on the virus particle. It's a critical region of the virus for several reasons. Spike proteins bind to human cells and help the virus gain entry inside cells. And these spike proteins are the target of many critical antibodies. A major way the immune system detects the virus is by its spike proteins.

Preventive measures: OK, this isn't a hard one to figure out. And for now, the fact remains that not enough is known to take much action to forestall infections besides getting vaccinated and boosted and following the prevention strategies of masking and physical distancing that we've relied on throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

New Coronavirus News from 5 Dec 2021

A fortnight ago the UK economy was looking up; then Omicron arrived [The Guardian, 5 Dec 2021]

by Larry Elliott

Like the government with Covid, the Bank of England faces a wait-and-see versus no-risk dilemma on interest rates

So here we are again. Christmas is approaching and a new variant of Covid-19 has appeared.
Infections are on the rise but the government is worried about overreacting. There are risks to public health from people socialising but risks to the economy if they don’t. Being an armchair critic is easy but getting the balance right is hard.

A couple of weeks ago it all looked different. Certainly, the number of UK cases remained stubbornly high but the UK was not suffering the surge in cases seen in Austria, Germany or the Netherlands. The arrival of vaccines – the big change in the past 12 months – meant hospitalisations and death rates were much lower than they were when the country was locked down last winter.

Meanwhile, the economy was chugging along. The end of the furlough had passed off without the feared wave of redundancies and things were looking up for both the manufacturing and services sectors. Industry was reporting the strongest order books since the late 1970s, while the loosening of travel restrictions meant the service sector saw the biggest upturn in overseas business in four years.

Growing inflationary pressure caused by supply-side bottlenecks posed the biggest barrier to rising output, and the City was convinced the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee would raise interest rates at its December meeting.

Then Omicron arrived and everything was made a lot more complicated.

For a start, the new strain of the virus is already having an impact on the economy. People are working from home more and they are going out less. In a milder form of the behavioural pattern seen during lockdowns, people will spend money that would have gone on services on goods instead. There will be fewer visits to cinemas but sales of new TVs will go up.

It was this shift that created global bottlenecks, because supply couldn’t keep up with demand. Until a couple of weeks ago, consumers and businesses were starting to sense the end was in sight: that once the Delta variant had been seen off, life could return to normal. That idea has now been nixed, because even if Omicron proves to be less of a problem than feared, there will be more Greek letters to come, one of which could be a super-variant. What were originally considered to be temporary behavioural changes could become more embedded. Inflationary pressures seen as transitory could become more permanent.

For the Bank of England, as for other central banks, this presents a dilemma. The MPC delayed raising rates last month because it wanted to see the impact on unemployment of ending the furlough. Should it again adopt a wait-and-see approach until there is more clarity on how serious Omicron will be for the economy, or does that run the risk that tougher action will be needed in the future? Michael Saunders, one of the two MPC members who voted for a rate rise in November, put both sides of the argument in a speech last week.

Judging by his recent remarks, Threadneedle Street’s former boss, Lord King, would have no hesitation in voting for a rate rise were he still governor. Speaking recently, King said central banks had adopted a King Canute-like approach in which inflation would stay low because they said it would.

When he was governor, Mervyn King coined an acronym for the state of the economy: Nice. It stood for non-inflationary continual expansion and summed up the seemingly benign state of the world as it was in the early years of the 21st century.

The Nice times were never quite as good as they looked, but even so, things were a lot simpler back then. Economies grew steadily year after year, inflation remained low and central banks contented themselves with tweaking interest rates every now and again.

There is nothing central banks would like more than to return to the era of the Great Moderation of the late 1990s and early 2000s. But those days are over, if not for ever then for a long time to come.

If the stakes are high for the Bank of England, then they are even higher for Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. The prime minister and the chancellor have their differences but they are agreed that the UK has to learn to live with Covid, and that vaccines make that adaptation easier. Since the late summer, the Treasury has been acting as if the crisis is all but over: ending support schemes such as the furlough and switching its focus to reducing the budget deficit.

Early signs from the labour market have been encouraging. Unemployment has not shot up and vacancies are plentiful. People wanted to get their lives back after more than a year of severe curbs on their personal liberty and flocked back to reopened pubs, restaurants, hotels, theatres and cinemas. Business was brisk in the sectors hardest hit by government restrictions.

As with the Bank of England, the government faces a dilemma but one with potentially much more serious consequences. Would it be better to adopt a no-risk approach to Omicron by bringing in more stringent restrictions now or wait and see how things pan out?

Despite the mixed messages coming out of Westminster and Downing Street last week, the view seems to be that economic disruption should be kept to a minimum and that Christmas should not be cancelled for a second year running. A high bar has been set for imposing new restrictions.

The risk, of course, is that Omicron spreads quickly and tough curbs are eventually imposed anyway, leading to strains on both the NHS and the economy. For an already weakened government, such a double whammy would be potentially catastrophic.

Omicron cases in UK rise by more than 50% in one day [The Independent, 5 Dec 2021]

by Ella Glover

More than 80 new cases of the variant identified

Cases of the new omicron variant in the UK have risen by more than 50 per cent in one day.
On Sunday, 86 cases of the new variant were recorded, bringing the UK's total to 246.

Sixty-eight of these were discovered in England, and the other 18 in Scotland, where there are now 48 confirmed cases in total, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said.

On Saturday, a change to travel rules was announced in a bid to slow the spread of the new variant.

Nigeria was added to the travel red list, which will go into effect from 4am Monday, 6 December.

On Saturday evening, Mr Javid tweeted: “From 4am Monday, only UK and Irish citizens and residents travelling from Nigeria will be allowed entry and must isolate in a managed quarantine facility.”

From 4am Tuesday, all people travelling to the UK from the country will have to take a pre-departure test, regardless of vaccination status, he added.

Earlier this week, people were ordered to wear masks in shops and on public transport and 10-day isolation periods were reintroduced for people in contact with the new variant, regardless of their vaccination status.

However, a government scientific advisor today said it is “too late” to make a “material difference” to a potential wave of omicron cases.

He said: “If omicron is here in the UK, and it certainly is, if there’s community transmission in the UK, and it certainly looks that way, then it’s that community transmission that will drive a next wave ... but I think it’s too late to make a material difference to the course of the omicron wave if we’re going to have one.”

Dr Katherine Henderson, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, also warned that the NHS will be in a “very, very difficult position” if the Omicron variant causes a surge in hospital admissions.

She said that the situation is already “spectacularly bad” and likely to become worse
She added: “We will always still be there. We still want patients to come but we do have to help people to understand that really at the moment the service is so stretched that an extra push could be very very difficult.”

Omicron variant: Cases confirmed in 6 more U.S. states as delta still biggest Covid threat [NBC News, 5 Dec 2021]

By Rhoda Kwan

It may very well be that omicron is able to out-compete delta,” said Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Six more U.S. states confirmed their first cases of the Covid-19 omicron variant Friday, as experts warned the highly contagious delta variant will likely remain the greater threat as winter sets in.

New Jersey, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Utah all reported omicron cases, while in New York City, officials reached out to a man who tested positive for the variant and had attended an anime conference at a Manhattan convention center last month along with more than 50,000 people.

Five other attendees have also been infected with the coronavirus, though officials were unsure about which variant they had.

Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told “NBC Nightly News” there were about 90,000 new cases a day in the U.S. and “right now, 99.9 percent of them still are the delta variant.”

But she said a number of omicron cases had arrived in the country, and it was possible that more could follow.

Although not the case at the moment, Walensky said “it may very well be that omicron is able to out-compete delta,” although the CDC had yet to see “any symptoms that are unique to omicron” and it was “too early to tell in terms of increased severity.”

Omicron cases have now been detected in 38 different countries since it was first discovered in southern Africa late last month, the World Health Organization said Friday. No deaths have been attributed to the new variant, it added.

In Australia, some states have tightened their domestic border controls after a cluster of omicron cases in Sydney grew to 13 and an infection was suspected in the state of Queensland.

Meanwhile, South Korea reported 5,352 new infections and 70 deaths Saturday, its highest number of new daily cases so far. It has also confirmed nine total cases of the omicron variant, according to health authorities.

India also reported its third omicron case, as its total number of Covid-19 infections grew close to 35 million.

There are also fears of an omicron outbreak in Israel, where seven new cases and 27 suspected cases of the new variant were reported Friday.

In Brazil, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro canceled New Year’s Eve celebrations after the country confirmed the first known cases of the variant in South America's biggest country.

In Africa, Zambia also detected its first cases in three people, the country's health ministry said Saturday.

DEC. 3, 202105:08
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, called on countries to reassess their vaccination programs to ensure their most vulnerable people are becoming vaccinated against the coronavirus to get ahead of the spread of omicron.

“We don’t know how it will unfold. What we are asking countries to do now is to critically assess their situation,” she said during a question-and-answer session livestream on the WHO’s Facebook page Friday.

She added that countries needed to be “aggressive” against early cases to stem the spread of the new variant.