During that time frame, Michigan’s covid hospitalizations rose by nearly 1,900, CDC data shows, marking the highest figure for a single state. Hospitalizations also went up by more than 1,400 patients each in Ohio and Pennsylvania and by more than 900 in Indiana. The four states, which have some of the highest per capita current hospitalization numbers in the United States, are responsible for almost half of the country’s increase in covid hospitalizations between Nov. 10 and Dec. 5.
Coronavirus cases, driven by the delta variant, have also been rising since late October. A rise in hospitalizations tends to follow a rise in new cases by a couple of weeks. At the pandemic’s peak in January, U.S. hospitalizations reached nearly 128,000.
Here’s what to know
- Early data from Pfizer and BioNTech suggests that two shots of their vaccine may not be sufficient to prevent infection from omicron and booster doses will be critical.
- The pandemic has made an already brewing youth mental health crisis worse, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy wrote in an advisory published Tuesday.
- Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, said Tuesday that the omicron variant appears to cause less severe illness — although he cautioned that the available data remains preliminary and anecdotal.
MORE ON THE OMICRON VARIANT
Nigeria’s health minister criticizes gifts of doses with short shelf life
Nigeria’s health minister Wednesday said that many donated coronavirus vaccines arrived in the country with only a few weeks remaining in their shelf life, causing bottlenecks in the nation’s rollout.
Expired vaccines have been withdrawn to be destroyed by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration, said Minister of Health Osagie Ehanire.
The minister said some vaccine manufacturers requested to extend dose shelf life by three months, but the health ministry declined the request, Reuters reported. The practice of extending shelf life by three months “though accepted by experts … is not accommodated in our standards,” Ehanire said.
Health groups including Africa’s disease control body and the U.N. vaccine program COVAX said in a Nov. 29 statement that “the quality of donations needs to improve.” In a released set of standards, the health groups asked that vaccines donated to African nations have at least 10 weeks of shelf life upon arrival in a recipient country.
The standards also called for doses to be released “in a predictable manner” and with at least four weeks’ notice.
“If such vaccines arrive back-to-back or are many, logistic bottlenecks occasionally arise,” Ehanire said Wednesday, according to the Nigerian news outlet the Guardian. Still, the minister said, Nigeria had used most of around 10 million vaccine doses of short shelf life given to the country so far.
Boris Johnson’s staff denied there was a 2020 Christmas party, then they joked about it on camera
LONDON — Britain is obsessed by a Christmas party, which either did or didn’t happen at 10 Downing Street last year, in the middle of a strict lockdown, as the hospitals filled with the sick and dying.
The official spokesman for the prime minister says there was no holiday party, that no rules were broken, despite a scoop by the Mirror, a British tabloid that yes, Virginia, there was a party, with guests “knocking back glasses of wine during a Christmas quiz and a Secret Santa while the rest of the country was forced to stay at home.”
Now there’s leaked video, not of the alleged party itself, but of a mock news conference staged by Boris Johnson’s former press secretary, about the party, four days after the alleged festivities.
The Christmas party scandal has been bubbling on the back burner for a week — and now it could explode. The story plays into assertions that Johnson and his government cannot be trusted, that it is one rule for the people and another rule for the rulers.
New ‘stealth’ form of omicron discovered in Australia
Authorities in the Australian state of Queensland say they have identified a new lineage of the omicron variant, which has been dubbed “omicron-like.”
The new sub-classification has 14 mutations of the original coronavirus, compared with 30 in the omicron variant, the state’s acting chief health officer, Peter Aitken, said Wednesday.
Researchers have since identified cases in South Africa and Canada with the same genomic sequences as the Queensland case, with some researchers informally calling it a “stealth version” of omicron, the Guardian reported.
Omicron-like doesn’t have the “S-gene dropout” used to differentiate omicron from other coronavirus strains in quickly processed PCR tests, which could make it harder to track.
But Catherine Bennett, epidemiology chair at Australia’s Deakin University, said PCR testing didn’t always work to detect omicron, as opposed to other variants.
“The reason they’re using the term ‘stealth’ is just because we were quite excited that one version of the PCR test could pick up this dropout … [otherwise] you’ve got to wait for your genomic testing,” she said. She added that genomic sequencing picks up the known omicron variant as well as the new lineage.
The omicron-like lineage was identified in a traveler with covid-19 who had come from South Africa to Queensland and remains in hotel quarantine. The state’s mandatory measure for most new overseas arrivals keeps them isolated for 14 days.
It is too soon to tell what the new sub-classification means for “clinical severity or vaccine effectiveness,” Aitken said.
Bennett said variations within new variants are to be expected. “It might not be an issue,” she said. “You’re getting this microevolution all the time. We have lots of variants circulating, and we don’t hear about them at all because they didn’t become variants of interest.”
Key coronavirus updates from around the world
Here’s what to know from news service reports about the coronavirus pandemic:
- Romania will ease some social restrictions on Wednesday, removing a night curfew and a requirement to wear face masks outdoors ahead of winter holidays, officials said. Face masks will continue to be mandatory on public transportation and indoor public spaces.
- The African Union has called for an urgent end to travel restrictions imposed on some of its member states, including by the United States and much of Europe. The body said the restrictions penalize governments for timely data sharing in line with international health regulations.
- South Korea reported more than 7,000 daily new coronavirus infections Wednesday — the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. The nation has been grappling with a surge in infections since its social distancing restrictions were eased last month to rejuvenate the economy.
- The French territory of Martinique is imposing a new overnight curfew starting Wednesday night because of a rise in coronavirus cases. The move appears likely to trigger more unrest on the Caribbean island.
- In Britain, the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson is under fire after allegations that a Christmas party was held in government offices last year while England was under strict lockdown rules. Johnson’s staff denied there was a 2020 Christmas party, then joked about it on camera in a leaked video. The prime minister reportedly plans to implement tighter social restrictions ahead of the holiday season.
British grandma who got world’s first approved Pfizer shot says, ‘Please do have the jab,’ one year later
It’s easy to forget it’s been only one year since the first Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine shot was administered to someone outside clinical trials.
Images of British grandmother Margaret Keenan rolling up her sleeve beside nurse May Parsons made global headlines on Dec. 8, 2020, and signaled the start of the first mass coronavirus immunization campaign in the West.
Exactly a year later, Keenan, 91, told the BBC in an interview that strangers often greeted her on the streets and thanked her, but her anniversary message for those who are still not vaccinated is: “Go and have it done.”
“I say please, please do have the jab because it’ll save your life and the life of your friends and family,” she added, wearing a mask. “Don’t think about it, just go and have it done — just do it.”
At the time, Keenan, a former jewelry shop assistant, told reporters that she felt “so privileged to be the first” and that the vaccine meant she could “finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year, after being on my own for most of the year.”
The second person to be vaccinated at the same English hospital was 81-year-old William Shakespeare, whose name prompted an inevitable flurry of puns in British newspapers.
Matt Hancock, then Britain’s health secretary, was emotional at the time of Keenan’s vaccination, shedding a tear in a television interview and expressing relief that an end could be in sight for a pandemic that has cost millions of lives.
On Wednesday, Hancock thanked Keenan and shared her messages, tweeting: “We’ve made so much progress in our fight against this pandemic, but we’re not there yet.” He urged more people to get vaccinated.
Booster doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be critical against omicron, companies’ study suggests
A booster shot could prove pivotal in helping control the omicron variant by raising coronavirus-fighting antibodies high enough to block it, vaccine makers Pfizer and BioNTech announced in a news release Wednesday.
The early data, which is not yet peer reviewed or published, suggests that two shots may not be sufficient to prevent infection from omicron and echoes a finding published Tuesday afternoon by leading scientists in South Africa.
Both studies suggest that higher levels of antibodies — whether triggered by a booster shot or a previous infection in addition to vaccination — would be protective.
Like the South African scientists, the pharmaceutical companies took blood samples after vaccination and found that virus-fighting antibodies took a big hit against omicron. For people with only two shots, the levels were low enough to leave them susceptible to breakthrough infections. The lessened effectiveness of the two-shot regimen means it “may not be sufficient to protect against infection with the Omicron variant,” the companies said.
WHO’s Mike Ryan says omicron may be less severe but that more research is needed
The World Health Organization’s emergencies director and second-in-command, Mike Ryan, has said the omicron coronavirus variant may be less severe than other variants.
“The preliminary data doesn’t indicate that this is more severe. In fact, if anything, the direction is towards less severity,” Ryan said in an interview with Agence France-Presse on Tuesday. However, he added that more research was needed.
His sentiments were echoed by Anthony S. Fauci, the United States’ top infectious-disease expert. Fauci said Tuesday that emerging evidence suggests omicron may be more transmissible than previous variants but cause less severe illness — although he cautioned that the available data remains preliminary and anecdotal.
Ryan also said omicron appeared “highly unlikely” to completely evade current vaccines. He acknowledged, however, that existing vaccines may be less effective against the variant.
“We have highly effective vaccines that have proved effective against all the variants so far, in terms of severe disease and hospitalization. … There’s no reason to expect that it wouldn’t be so” for omicron, he added.
Last week, Ryan said work on an omicron-tailored vaccine was possible, but he reiterated that the focus should still be on the equitable global distribution of vaccines.
On Wednesday, the WHO said omicron has been reported in 57 nations worldwide so far.
German prosecutor suggests suspected murder-suicide may be linked to coronavirus vaccine certificate forgery
German authorities suspect that a man who may have killed his wife and three young children before taking his own life had forged a coronavirus vaccination certificate and feared that his children would be taken away after his alleged offense was uncovered.
Police found the bodies of the man and his wife, who were both 40, along with their children ages 4, 8 and 10, at their home in the Berlin suburbs on Saturday. Neighbors reportedly called emergency services after seeing the lifeless bodies in the house.
The deaths are still under investigation, and police are awaiting autopsy results to determine the exact timing of the incidents, according to German media. Preliminary investigations indicate the man died by suicide, and investigators believe he is responsible for the other deaths, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur news agency reported, citing police and the public prosecutor’s office. All five had gunshot wounds.
On Tuesday, a local prosecutor told Reuters that investigators had found what appeared to be a farewell letter, in which the suspect allegedly admitted to faking a vaccination certificate for his wife. Gernot Bantleon, the attorney, said the counterfeit had been spotted and that the couple appeared to fear arrest and other consequences.
The man had no police record and the family was not previously known to welfare officials, DPA reported. In Germany, forensic psychiatrists usually help investigate cases where a farewell note suggests a motive, a Berlin-based psychiatrist told the news agency.
The gruesome incident comes as German officials are tightening restrictions to stem another wave of coronavirus infections. Authorities last week agreed to ban unvaccinated people from some stores, as well as cultural and recreational venues, and are planning to make vaccinations mandatory for some jobs.
Legislators also have introduced tougher penalties for falsifying vaccination certificates, making it a criminal offense punishable with a fine or jail term of up to one year, DPA reported. Previously, forging certificates was a legal gray area.
About 69 percent of the German population is fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The country reported a seven-day rolling average of some 52,000 new infections on Monday.
If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255). You can also text a crisis counselor by messaging the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
A youth mental health crisis was already brewing. The pandemic made it worse, surgeon general says.
The situation painted across the U.S. surgeon general’s 53-page advisory is dire.
Compared with 2019, emergency room visits for suicide attempts rose 51 percent for adolescent girls in early 2021. Among boys, there was an increase of four percentage points. Depression and anxiety doubled during the coronavirus pandemic, with 25 percent of youths experiencing depressive symptoms and 20 percent suffering anxiety symptoms, according to the report published Tuesday.
“It would be a tragedy if we beat back one public health crisis only to allow another to grow in its place,” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy wrote in an advisory published Tuesday. “Mental health challenges in children, adolescents, and young adults are real, and they are widespread. But most importantly, they are treatable, and often preventable.”
First plant-based coronavirus vaccine shows ‘positive’ results, say GlaxoSmithKline and Medicago
Pharmaceutical companies Medicago and GlaxoSmithKline announced on Tuesday “positive efficacy and safety results” from a global trial using what they say is the world’s first plant-based coronavirus vaccine.
The late-stage trial, which studied 24,000 adults across six countries, found that the overall efficacy rate of the vaccine candidate was 71 percent, rising to 75.3 percent against coronavirus “of any severity for the globally dominant Delta variant.” However, the trial did not include the newly identified omicron variant.
The global Phase 3 placebo-controlled efficacy study used Canada-based Medicago’s plant-based vaccine in combination with British drugmaker GSK’s pandemic adjuvant, an ingredient that works to boost the immune response and efficacy of others’ vaccines.
It does not yet have a brand name, the companies said, but is referred to as “CoVLP.”
Pfizer could have new vaccine targeted at omicron in March, CEO says
Pfizer could have a new vaccine targeted at the omicron variant of the coronavirus in March, the company’s CEO said Tuesday, adding that it is not yet clear that it will be necessary.
Speaking at a Wall Street Journal conference of business leaders, CEO Albert Bourla emphasized that scientists are still gathering information on the variant, which experts worry could be more transmissible and more resistant to vaccines. The coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech was the first to get full authorization in the United States.
A new laboratory study in South Africa shows that the omicron variant has significant, but not total, ability to evade virus-fighting antibodies generated by the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The findings have not been peer reviewed. With omicron, researchers found a 41-fold drop in antibodies’ ability to block the virus compared to an early strain.
Early reports also suggest the omicron variant might lead to less severe disease, public health officials say, but they also underscore that more data will clarify the picture.
“I think that if there is a need for the vaccine, we will have a vaccine in March,” Bourla said. “I don’t know if there will be a need for a vaccine. We will know that in a few weeks.”
Sticking with the current vaccine would be “preferable, of course,” he said.
Carolyn Y. Johnson and Joel Achenbach contributed to this report.
South Korea tops 7,000 daily new cases for the first time
SEOUL — South Korea on Wednesday reported more than 7,000 daily new coronavirus infections for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.
The nation has been grappling with a surge in infections since its social distancing restrictions were eased last month to rejuvenate the economy.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 63 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the national tally to 4,020. The nation’s mortality rate is still low, at 0.8 percent, less than half the global average.
However, a record 840 virus patients are in serious or critical condition, straining already depleted medical resources. Hospitals in the metropolitan Seoul area, where 5,602 of the 7,175 new cases were reported, face an acute shortage of beds for covid-19 treatment.
“In the greater capital area where 80 percent of the country’s cases are concentrated, we are adding more hospital beds thanks to support from health-care forces but still find it hard to catch up with the speed of infections,” Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Wednesday.
Patients with mild cases have been told to isolate at home amid hospital-bed shortages, with Korean health authorities overseeing their cases remotely.
In Wednesday’s virus meeting, Kim called for unvaccinated schoolchildren to be immunized (those 12 and older are eligible) and for vaccinated older adults to get booster doses. South Korea has fully vaccinated 92 percent of its adult population, according to the KDCA.
The federal government has also ramped up border measures to stave off the new omicron variant of the coronavirus. All travelers entering South Korea have to quarantine for at least 10 days. As of Tuesday, the country had reported 38 cases of the omicron variant.
First lab results show omicron has ‘much more extensive escape’ from antibodies than previous variants
The first in-depth laboratory study of the omicron variant of the coronavirus offers a mixed bag of bad news and good news.
The bad: This variant is extremely slippery. It eludes a great deal of the protection provided by disease-fighting antibodies. That means people who previously recovered from a bout of covid-19 could be reinfected. And people who have been vaccinated could suffer breakthrough infections.
But the findings of the study, which tested the omicron variant of the coronavirus against the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, aren’t entirely bleak. The study, released Tuesday, found that even if the power of vaccines is diminished in the face of omicron, there’s still some protection afforded against the virus. And it suggests that booster shots could be key in the battle with the variant.
The implications of the findings for vaccine strategy are, at this point, unclear. It is a good sign that the Pfizer vaccine retains some punch against the omicron variant, but these lab experiments are a highly artificial way of testing how vaccines hold up.