Tedros urged countries to avoid “vaccine hoarding” and to implement all other recommended measures, including the use of masks and social distancing, to stem the spread of the virus. But he also cautioned, “I need to be very clear: The vaccine alone will not get any country out of this crisis.”
The WHO warning came as the United States hit 50 million coronavirus infections and is nearing 800,000 fatalities, according to Washington Post figures, in the latest set of grim milestones during the pandemic.
Here’s what to know
- Omicron appears to cause less-severe illness than earlier variants of the coronavirus but is more resistant to the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to a major private study in South Africa.
- Pfizer announced Tuesday that in a final analysis, its experimental antiviral pill sharply reduced hospitalizations and deaths among people at high risk of severe illness because of age or underlying medical conditions.
- China, one of the world’s last countries maintaining a zero-covid policy, has reported its first omicron cases in two patients who recently returned from abroad.
- Planning to travel internationally for the holidays? Here’s what you need to know.
MORE ON THE OMICRON VARIANT
Omicron spreading swiftly and should not be dismissed as mild, WHO chief warns
The World Health Organization said Wednesday that omicron is spreading at a rate not seen with previous coronavirus variants and warned against dismissing it as mild.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that even if data eventually confirms that omicron causes less severe disease than other variants, the sheer number of infections could “once again overwhelm unprepared health systems.”
Tedros urged countries to avoid “vaccine hoarding” and to implement all other recommended measures, including the use of masks and social distancing, to stem the spread of the virus. But he also cautioned: “I need to be very clear: The vaccine alone will not get any country out of this crisis.”
WHO officials underlined significant inequities in access to vaccines and vaccination rates around the world and urged governments and manufacturers to continue to donate vaccines to nations that need them the most.
Tedros said that 41 countries have still not been able to vaccinate even 10 percent of their population and that 98 countries have not managed to reach 40 percent.
“If we end inequity, we end the pandemic,” Tedros said.
Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, argued that with the peak of the omicron just “weeks away,” governments and institutions should “double, triple, quadruple” efforts to reach the most vulnerable populations, including older people, who are being left out because of vaccine hesitancy, communication failures and other factors, including race and class.
Ryan said that although some governments are rolling out boosters for all adults or general populations as a preemptive measure to stem the spread of omicron, these decisions can contribute to more inequality on a global scale, leaving millions without any protection and at greater risk of hospitalization or death from the virus.
“It’s about priorities,” Ryan said. “And it’s about who we miss.”
United Kingdom drops all 11 nations from travel ‘red list’
The United Kingdom is dropping all countries from its travel red list, which was reintroduced in late November amid early concerns about the omicron variant’s spread.
The nations on the list were Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
“Now that there is community transmission … and omicron has spread so widely across the world, the travel red list is now less effective in slowing the incursion of omicron from abroad,” British Health Secretary Sajid Javid told the House of Commons as he announced the change.
Effective Wednesday morning, travelers arriving from those nations will no longer have to book and pay for a government-approved hotel stay for 10 days of self-isolation. The government website lists the price for one adult room for the duration as 2,285 pounds ($3,023).
Britain will keep its testing protocols for international travels unchanged. Coronavirus tests are mandated for all travelers before they travel to the United Kingdom and after their arrival. The travelers must quarantine until their test result comes back negative.
Last month, some nations closed off their borders to and imposed other restrictions on travelers from southern Africa amid the emergence of the omicron variant. Malawi’s president described the measures as “Afrophobia,” while others criticized them as hasty, unjustified and misdirected. Many of those travel bans remain in place.
The United States still bans entry to noncitizens who have recently been in eight southern African nations.
CDC warns against travel to Italy because of ‘very high’ coronavirus risk
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned people not to travel to Italy, placing one of Europe’s top tourist destinations on its highest-risk category for the coronavirus, along with the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland and the small African island of Mauritius.
On Monday, the CDC moved all three places from a Level 3 risk category to Level 4 and recommended that people avoid traveling there. If they do, the agency said, they should ensure they are “fully vaccinated before travel.”
The CDC reviews case data and places a destination at Level 4, signifying “very high” risk, when it reports more than 500 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past 28 days.
Italy is one of the last countries in Europe to be placed at a Level 4, after France, Portugal — which has one of the highest vaccination rates in Europe — and Germany. Spain is at Level 3, as is Malta.
Europe continues to grapple with a surge of coronavirus cases, largely driven by the delta and highly transmissible omicron variants and as scientists and leaders worldwide continue to monitor and assess the severity of omicron.
Britain, also at Level 4, declared an “omicron emergency” this week and said it expects an “omicron tidal wave,” as cases continue to increase in London and other cities.
Some hospitals cancel staff vaccine requirements with Biden rule tied up in courts
A number of hospitals are walking away from vaccine requirements for their employees in the wake of court rulings that have blocked the White House’s vaccine rule for many health-care centers.
These hospital groups include Christian medical center AdventHealth, the Cleveland Clinic, Tenet Healthcare and Nashville-based HCA Healthcare, which together account for more than 300 hospitals and 500,000 employees.
The hospitals said they had instituted vaccine requirements to comply with the Biden administration’s directive that hospitals and medical centers that receive Medicaid or Medicare funding institute vaccine mandates. But now that the rule is being held up in court, they said, they were dropping the requirements. The decisions were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The hospital mandate was one of a suite of ambitious federal rules meant to increase public safety by requiring vaccines at workplaces nationwide.
Britain reports rapid spread of omicron
Though health officials have confirmed only several thousand omicron cases, the variant is probably affecting far more Britons, Javid said. It is expected to become the dominant version of the coronavirus in London in the next 48 hours, he added.
The remarks came on the same day British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the country had confirmed the first death of a person infected with the new variant. Ten people are also confirmed to be hospitalized after contracting omicron, Javid said.
Javid’s comments add weight to data suggesting that omicron is much more transmissible than other coronavirus variants. Though it is unclear whether omicron is as lethal as other variants of concern designated by the World Health Organization, some studies have suggested that initial vaccine regimens may be less effective against the variant, and health officials are urging people to get boosters.
“Two doses are not enough to prevent symptomatic infections from omicron,” Javid said, as he urged more Britons to receive booster shots. “With the race between the vaccine and virus so close, we must move faster.”
More than 80 percent of people in the U.K. ages 12 or up are fully vaccinated with two doses, while over 40 percent have received boosters, according to a government website.
Kroger ends some covid-era benefits for unvaccinated employees, adds health-care surcharge for some of them
Kroger, one of the country’s biggest grocers, is doing away with some covid-era benefits for unvaccinated employees as part of its push to encourage “safe behaviors” among its roughly 465,000 workers.
The two weeks of paid emergency leave that Kroger has been offering to employees who contract covid-19 will no longer be extended to the unvaccinated, unless local jurisdictions require otherwise, Kroger told The Washington Post in an email. Workers can still use earned paid time off or apply for unpaid leave.
Additionally, salaried employees who are unvaccinated and enrolled in company health-care plans will also see a monthly $50 surcharge on their accounts starting Jan. 1. The company will continue to reward workers who get the vaccine with a one-time, $100 payment.
“The administration of the vaccine to our associates has been an integral part of our efforts and continues to be a focus,” Kroger said in the statement emailed to The Post. “As we prepare to navigate the next phase of the pandemic, we are modifying policies to encourage safe behaviors including vaccination.”
The move, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes as businesses around the country confront the complications of federal vaccination mandates, which are facing formidable legal challenges.
President Biden’s vaccine mandate, which requires medium and large employers to vaccinate workers or require weekly coronavirus testing by early January, is in limbo after a federal appeals court temporarily halted it in November. Challenges could take it all the way to the Supreme Court.
If the mandate is struck down, it will likely deal a major blow to workforce vaccination efforts. A survey published this week by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 75 percent of businesses would not pursue mandatory vaccination or weekly testing is the mandate is overturned.
Africa sees 83 percent rise in coronavirus cases over past week
The World Health Organization said Tuesday that it had recorded an 83 percent rise in coronavirus cases in Africa over the past week, the fastest increase this year, while adding that the early stage of this wave, fueled in part by the omicron variant, has led to fewer deaths than previous surges.
Despite the speed of the spread, driven also by the delta variant, and the number of new infections now doubling every five days, “deaths remain low and even dropped by 19% last week compared with the previous week,” the heath body said.
That pattern may still change in the coming weeks, it said however, warning of more coronavirus waves in the future as it predicted that the continent may not reach 70 percent vaccine coverage until August 2024.
“We are cautiously optimistic that deaths and severe illness will remain low in the current wave, but slow vaccine rollout in Africa means both will be much higher than they should be,” the WHO’s regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said in a statement.
“We can still save many lives if we can accelerate the pace of vaccination in early 2022,” she added.
The latest variant, omicron, has renewed fears about the course of the pandemic and stricter health restrictions worldwide, including travel bans involving the southern region of Africa, where scientists first identified it, although it has since popped up in many countries. It has also drawn fresh condemnation of vaccine inequity.
The first major private study since omicron was detected said Tuesday that this variant appeared to cause less severe illness than earlier variants but was more resistant to the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine widely used in South Africa.
UPS, FedEx vaccine deliveries top 1.3 billion, one year after shipments began
UPS and FedEx have moved 1.3 billion doses of coronavirus vaccines in the year since deliveries began, the shipping giants announced Tuesday, largely defying the broader challenges plaguing global supply chains.
UPS said it has delivered more than 1 billion doses to 110 countries since shipments began Dec. 14, 2020. FedEx put domestic deliveries at 300 million doses during the same period but did not provide an international figure.
Both companies have gone to extraordinary lengths to transport vaccines, which often must be kept at extremely cold temperatures. UPS has used more than 3 million pounds of dry ice, the company said, to keep vaccines from spoiling.
FedEx said its average U.S. delivery time was less than 20 hours from pickup from a manufacturer to drop-off at a medical facility. UPS said its deliveries ran with 99.9 percent on-time service.
More than 60 percent of the U.S. population is considered fully vaccinated, including 54.4 million people who have received booster shots. Vaccine developers Pfizer and BioNTech said in a preliminary report that a booster shot may provide significant protection against the new omicron variant of the coronavirus.
In the past week, an average of 1.95 million doses per day were administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a 10 percent increase over the week before.
Key coronavirus updates from around the world
By From news services9:09 a.m.
Here’s what to know about the top coronavirus stories around the globe from news service reports.
- The World Health Organization reported an 83 percent rise in new coronavirus cases in Africa this week — the fastest surge this year. But Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, said she was “cautiously optimistic that deaths and severe illness will remain low in the current wave.”
- In the United Kingdom, 10 people with omicron cases were hospitalized as the country reported its first known death from the variant. Meanwhile, France recorded about 130 omicron cases and said it was considering imposing restrictions on British travelers.
- South Korea marked its deadliest day of the pandemic, with 94 fatalities recorded in 24 hours, as a delta variant outbreak overwhelmed the country’s medical system.
- Canada’s top public health official warned of community transmission of the omicron variant and said infections could “rapidly escalate” soon, calling on more people to get boosters.
Pfizer’s anti-covid pill prevents severe illness and should work against omicron, company says
As the omicron variant threatens to wipe out a mainstay of coronavirus treatment, Pfizer announced Tuesday that in a final analysis, its experimental antiviral pill sharply reduced hospitalizations and deaths among people at high risk of severe illness because of age or underlying medical conditions.
Reinforcing an earlier analysis from November, Pfizer’s drug cut hospitalizations and deaths by nearly 90 percent when taken within three or five days of the onset of symptoms, the company announced. Preliminary laboratory studies suggest the easy-to-take drug will hold up against the omicron variant.
Two antiviral pills, Pfizer’s and one from Merck, are under consideration by regulators — and additional safe and effective treatment options can’t arrive soon enough.
Omicron is more resistant to vaccines but causes less severe covid, South African study finds
By Lesley Wroughton8:10 a.m.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Omicron appears to cause less severe illness than earlier variants of the coronavirus but is more resistant to the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine widely used in South Africa, according to the first major private study since omicron was first detected last month.
The study by Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest health insurer, of 211,000 positive coronavirus cases showed that risk of hospital admissions among adults who contracted covid-19 was 29 percent lower than in the initial pandemic wave that emerged in March 2020.
However, the study found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine provided just 33 percent protection against infection, much less than the level for other variants detected in the country so far. At the same time, the vaccine provided 70 percent protection against severe complications that would require a patient to be hospitalized, the study found, calling that “very good protection.”
Doja Cat tests positive for coronavirus
Doja Cat, the singer and rapper famous for songs such as “Say So” and “Kiss Me More,” said she had tested positive for the coronavirus in a statement posted on her social media accounts on Monday, forcing her to cancel multiple performances planned this month.
Her covid-19 status means she won’t be performing as scheduled in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Miami, she said in a statement. “I’m doing ok and look forward to recovering and getting back out there,” she said.
The 26-year-old was scheduled to perform on the iHeart Radio Jingle Ball tour. The Black Eyed Peas, the Jonas Brothers, Ed Sheeran and BTS were among those scheduled to perform at some of the tour’s venues.
Two days earlier, the singer said members of her production crew had been infected. She and other members entered quarantine, she said.
This is at least the second time that Doja Cat has contracted the coronavirus. In July 2020, she said she had been infected with the coronavirus in an interview, saying she had undergone a few days of “symptom freakout” before recovering.
S. Korean city will trial facial recognition tech for contact tracing
SEOUL — A South Korean city will trial facial recognition technology to trace close contacts of people who have been infected with the coronavirus.
The system, which is financially supported by the central government, will be rolled out early next year in the city of Bucheon, just outside Seoul. It will be built off data gathered by thousands of CCTV cameras in the area, and use artificial intelligence algorithms to track the movement of patients and close contacts, according to the city’s website.
South Korea, which is battling an early-winter spike in cases, has taken a vigorous approach to contact tracing. It uses information such as credit card records and phone location data, but the recent surge in infections has overwhelmed its tracing system. Health authorities have postponed reopening plans but the infections continue to gain speed amid record daily caseloads. Contact tracers are working round-the-clock to keep up.
The facial recognition technology is expected to expedite the process, and could track 10 people in under 10 minutes, said a Bucheon city official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the system. “The new technology will make contact tracing more efficient by improving the tracers’ labor productivity and more accurate by providing additional evidence.”
Other governments have also used tech measures, many of which would have been considered intrusive before the pandemic, in an attempt to combat the spread of the virus, sparking concerns from privacy advocates about potential surveillance outreach.
Bucheon says its tracking system is built on informed consent, but the city has not shared additional details about how it will seek permission from individuals.
South Korean watchdogs and media outlets have cautioned about the pace at which biometric technology is being used to manage the pandemic in the country.
“It is troubling to see government agencies and provincial authorities jumping into these biometric-based systems without proper checks in place,” said People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, a major rights group.
It had previously called for measures to prevent human rights from being breached by the potential abuse of such technology.
China reports first omicron cases
China has detected its first cases of the omicron variant in two patients who had recently returned to the country from abroad, state media reported this week.
One of the two patients was identified in Tianjin, a major port city near Beijing, while staying at a quarantine facility, local authorities told the Tianjin Daily newspaper. A local health official said Tuesday that the patient, who has been transferred to a designated hospital for covid treatment, does not have a cough or a fever.
China is one of the last countries maintaining a zero-covid policy, and Beijing requires all inbound travelers to quarantine for two to three weeks and to undergo repeated testing.
Authorities from the southern city of Guangzhou reported one case of the omicron variant Tuesday. The patient was a 67-year-old man who tested positive while under home quarantine; he had already completed two weeks of quarantine in dedicated facilities in Shanghai and was allowed to fly to Guangzhou on Saturday.
Wu Hao, a public health expert who advises the central government on coronavirus policies, insisted that China is “very safe,” given that the two cases had minimal contact with the general population.
“The omicron variant fundamentally is still a coronavirus, and the pattern with which it spreads is similar to past coronaviruses,” Wu said in an interview with Beijing Daily. “So the conventional methods of protection are still effective.”
Since early 2020, China has shuttered its doors to most foreigners while strictly managing the movement of citizens returning home. Most reported cases since the virus was first detected in Wuhan have been traced to overseas returnees, the government claims.
China is battling a spate of cases in Zhejiang province, where around 200 infections have been detected since last week. To clamp down on the spread of the virus, regional travel restrictions will be in place until March 2022, according to provincial officials.