Iran has announced the decision to close its land borders with neighbouring countries for 15 days to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 variant of Omicron…reports Asian Lite News
Ruhollah Latifi, spokesman for Iran’s Customs, said on Saturday thar the Iran’s land borders with Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Armenia are closed for half a month from Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.
Iran’s Health Ministry on Saturday reported 1,121 new Covid-19 cases, raising the country’s total infections to 6,182,905.
Iran
The pandemic also claimed 42 lives in the past 24 hours, taking the death toll to 131,348, according to the ministry.
A total of 6,024,211 people have recovered from the disease or been discharged from hospitals across the country, while 2,781 remain in intensive care units, it said.
People line up to get inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines at a vaccination station inside a shopping center in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 25, 2021. (Xinhua/Shan Yuqi/IANS)
Germany is bracing for a new wave of Covid-19 pandemic, caused by the more infectious Omicron variant, to hit the country, reports Asian Lite News
A large proportion of public health departments in Germany have already stopped contact tracing for people infected with Covid-19 due to overload, said Ute Teichert, the federal chairwoman of public health physicians,.
“Comprehensive tracking is almost not happening at all right now,” Teichert told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND), adding that several federal states such as Baden-Wuerttemberg, Berlin and Hamburg “even completely suspended contact searches”, Xinhua news agency reported.
Germany is bracing for a new wave of Covid-19 pandemic, caused by the more infectious Omicron variant, to hit the country.
An employee checks a visitor’s certificate of COVID-19 vaccination or recovery from COVID-19 at an entrance of a shopping center in Berlin, Germany. (Xinhua/Stefan Zeitz/IANS)
The Omicron wave could even worsen staff shortages in the country’s healthcare system.
“Because of the Omicron variant, we are running into a situation in Germany where health departments will eventually not be able to compensate for sick staff,” she said.
After introducing stricter health measures, Germany’s Covid-19 incidence rate has been declining for around two weeks and fell to 265.8 infections per 100,000 inhabitants per week, down from around 332 last week, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on Friday.
People walk in a shopping mall in Berlin, capital of Germany. (Str/Xinhua/IANS)
Daily infections also declined and dropped to 35,431 recorded cases within one day, around 15,500 less than one week ago, according to the RKI, the federal government agency for disease control and prevention.
But the RKI warned that it is possible that only an incomplete picture of the epidemiological situation is given.
Lower testing and reporting activity should be expected during the Christmas vacations and until New Year’s Day, the RKI noted.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that the new Omicron Covid-19 variant has spread to at least 22 nations across the continent…reports Asian Lite News
“As of today, 22 African countries are reporting the presence of the Omicron variant,” John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa CDC, told journalists in a briefing.
Omicron Spreads to 22 Countries in Africa
According to figures from the Africa CDC, Burkina Faso, Togo, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco and Mauritius have reported Omicron cases during the past week, reports Xinhua news agency.
“We can see clearly that the Omicron variant is spreading very quickly in Africa,” Nkengasong said.
The African Union had recently warned that travel and entry bans in connection with the emergence of the Omicron Covid-19 variant limit the free movement of people and goods, imposing immediate and significant impact on countries.
As of Friday, the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Africa has increased to 9,259,813 and the death toll stood at 226,536.
Some 119,789 cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, a day after figures exceeded 100,000 for the first time at 106,122. Britain is among the worst-hit countries in Europe with a virus death toll of 147,720, reports Asian Lite News
The UK on Thursday set another daily Covid-19 daily infections record, fuelled by the Omicron variant.
Some 119,789 cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, a day after figures exceeded 100,000 for the first time at 106,122.
The UK is among the worst-hit countries in Europe with a virus death toll of 147,720.
The Office for National Statistics estimated that nearly 1.4 million people in UK households had Covid in the week ending December 16, the highest figure yet of the pandemic that began in early 2020.
Hospital admissions are also growing, albeit more slowly than during previous waves, particularly in London.
There was nevertheless some “encouraging news,” Health Minister Sajid Javid said, since “early reports suggest the risk of hospitalisation is lower than (with) Delta”.
Two preliminary studies from Britain have indicated this.
“They’re not very clear though on by how much that risk is reduced,” Javid cautioned, warning that if case numbers are very high, there “could still be significant hospitalisations”.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has opted not to introduce tougher restrictions in England ahead of Christmas, focusing instead on a campaign to increase vaccine protection through a booster programme.
More than 30 million people in the UK have received booster jabs as Johnson has set the ambitious goal of offering one to everyone over 18 by the end of the year.
Other UK regions have tightened anti-virus measures, however, and Scotland announced Thursday that it would close nightclubs from next week including on New Year’s Eve, due the case surge.
The Scottish government said clubs would have to close from 5 am on Monday “to tackle the transmission of Omicron, which continues to spread rapidly”.
Edinburgh had already cancelled its usual spectacular firework display for New Year’s Eve, known in Scotland as Hogmanay.
Scotland’s Deputy First Minister John Swinney said the closure of nightclubs would come along with financial support to help them “weather what we hope will be a short period until they are able to operate normally again”.
He added that nightclubs could remain open if they only provided table service and had social distancing measures.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has warned Scotland could face a “tsunami of infections” and announced measures including a limit of 500 people at outdoor events from December 26, hitting sports fixtures.
Hospital risk for Omicron 40-45% lower, says study
The Omicron variant is less likely to lead to less severe disease in people who have taken vaccines or had Covid-19 in the past, two studies from Britain have said.
Taken together with findings from South Africa – all three studies were released on Wednesday – there is now sound scientific basis to conclude the variant is less virulent than others, especially Delta, which caused a devastating outbreak in India last summer and sparked new waves in other countries.
The findings are the first encouraging scientific evidence linked to the variant of concern (VOC) discovered last month when it started tearing through parts of South Africa at a rate not seen with any other Sars-Cov-2 variant. Scientists soon discovered it was also the most resistant configuration of the coronavirus, leading to higher odds of repeat and vaccine breakthrough infections.
If the Omicron variant was to be as virulent, or more, than Delta, the implications would have been dire, although its high transmissibility and resistance still pose a threat.
“Our analysis shows evidence of a moderate reduction in the risk of hospitalisation associated with the Omicron variant compared with the Delta variant. However, this appears to be offset by the reduced efficacy of vaccines against infection with the Omicron variant. Given the high transmissibility of the Omicron virus, there remains the potential for health services to face increasing demand if Omicron cases continue to grow at the rate that has been seen in recent weeks,” said professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London, which released the analysis of Omicron and Delta cases in England.
The Imperial College study included all RT-PCR-confirmed Covid-19 cases recorded between December 1-14 in England. It found that Omicron cases have, on average, a 15-20% reduced risk of needing to visit a hospital (the lowest level of severity) and an approximately 40-45% reduced risk of a hospitalisation resulting in a stay of one or more nights.
It also found that a past infection offered approximately a 50-70% reduction in hospitalisation risk compared. All of these comparisons were made against risks of hospitalisation seen with the Delta variant.
The researchers estimate that in unvaccinated people being infected for the first time, the risk of hospitalisation may be lowered by 0-30%, suggesting the severity in completely immune-naive people may not be very different from those who had a Delta infection for the first time, without any vaccine.
The other UK study was from Scotland. Although based on a small number of hospitalisations, the study made similar findings: those with Omicron infections were 68% less likely to need hospitalisation compared to people infected with the Delta variant.
Both reports, as well as the South African study, are yet to be peer-reviewed.
Fused cells are often seen in respiratory tissues taken following severe disease…reports Asian Lite News.
The Omicron variant of Covid-19 may be significantly better than previous variants at evading vaccine-induced antibodies, but preliminary evidence also suggests that it is less likely to cause severe illness in the lungs compared to Delta.
In a yet-to-be peer-reviewed study, a team of researchers led by Indian-origin Professor Ravi Gupta from the University of Cambridge, created synthetic viruses – known as ‘pseudoviruses’ — that carried key mutations found in the Delta and Omicron strains — to study the virus’s behaviour.
The pseudoviruses were used to infect cells in lung organoids – ‘mini-lungs’ that model parts of the lung.
Despite having three mutations that were predicted to favour the spike cleavage, the researchers found the Omicron spike protein to be less efficient than the Delta spike at cleaving the ACE2 receptor and entering the lung cells.
In addition, once Omicron had entered the cells, it was also less able than Delta to cause fusion between cells – a phenomenon associated with impaired cell-to-cell spread. Fused cells are often seen in respiratory tissues taken following severe disease.
Indeed, when the team used a live Omicron virus and compared it to Delta in a spreading infection experiment using lung cells, Omicron was significantly poorer in replication, confirming the findings regarding impaired entry.
“We speculate that the more efficient the virus is at infecting our cells, the more severe the disease might be. The fact that Omicron is not so good at entering lung cells and that it causes fewer fused cells with lower infection levels in the lab suggests this new variant may cause less severe lung-associated disease,” said Gupta from the varsity’s Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease.
The team also tested the pseudoviruses against blood samples from vaccinated individuals who had received two doses of either the AstraZeneca (ChAdOx-1) or Pfizer (BNT162b2) vaccines.
On average, Omicron required around a 10-fold increase in the concentration of serum antibodies in order to neutralise the virus, compared to Delta. Of particular concern, antibodies from the majority of individuals who had received two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were unable to neutralise the virus. The data were confirmed in live virus experiments.
Omicron becomes dominant strain of Covid-19 in Ireland
“The Omicron variant appears to be much better than Delta at evading neutralising antibodies in individuals who have received just two doses of the vaccine. A third dose ‘booster’ with the Pfizer vaccine was able to overturn this in the short term, though we’d still expect a waning in immunity to occur over time,” Gupta said.
He added that further work is needed to corroborate the findings. However, Gupta also urged caution.
“Omicron still represents a major public health challenge. Individuals who have only received two doses of the vaccine – or worse, none at all – are still at significant risk of Covid-19, and some will develop severe disease. The sheer number of new cases we are seeing every day reinforces the need for everyone to get their boosters as quickly as possible.”
WHO chief said the “fastest way” to get back to normal is to make “hard decisions,” this festive season amid the Omicron Covid-19 variant’s quick spread….reports Asian Lite News
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), has called on the world to pull together to end the Covid-19 pandemic within the next year.
Addressing reporters here on Monday, Tedros said the “fastest way” to get back to normal is to make “hard decisions,” this festive season amid the Omicron Covid-19 variant’s quick spread.
“”Canceling an event is better than canceling a life. It is better to cancel now and celebrate later than to celebrate now and mourn later,” he added.
“All of us want to get back to normal… We need to protect ourselves now,” Xinhua news agency quoted the WHO chief as further saying.
He also asked the governments to exercise maximum caution in the coming weeks and avoid events with large gatherings.
Since the Omicron variant was first discovered in South Africa, it has now been reported in 89 countries and the number of cases is doubling in 1.5 to three days in areas with community transmission, according to the WHO.
The new variant is not more severe than the Delta variant, but is possibly more contagious and resistant to vaccines.
On the inequity in access to vaccines, the WHO chief said: “If we are to end the pandemic in the coming year, we must end inequity.”
The yet-to-be-published study used data for all PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases in England who had taken a COVID-19 test between November 29 and December 11, 2021…reports Asian Lite News.
There is “no evidence” that Omicron has a lower severity than the Delta strain, according to a study in the UK which also found that the new variant of coronavirus largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses.
The study by researchers from Imperial College London in the UK estimates that the risk of reinfection with the Omicron variant is 5.4 times greater than that of the Delta variant.
This implies that the protection against reinfection by Omicron afforded by past infection may be as low as 19 per cent, the researchers said.
“The study finds no evidence of Omicron having lower severity than Delta, judged by either the proportion of people testing positive who report symptoms, or by the proportion of cases seeking hospital care after infection,” the authors of the study said. “However, hospitalisation data remains very limited at this time,” they added.
The yet-to-be-published study used data for all PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases in England who had taken a COVID-19 test between November 29 and December 11, 2021.
The research included people identified as having Omicron infection due to an S gene target failure (SGTF), as well as people with genotype data that confirmed Omicron infection.
Overall, 196,463 people without S gene target failure — those likely to be infected with another variant — and 11,329 cases with it were included in the analysis, as well as 122,063 Delta and 1,846 Omicron cases in the genotype analysis.
The results suggest that the proportion of Omicron among all COVID cases was doubling every two days up to December 11, the researchers said.
They estimate that the reproduction number (R) — the number of cases directly caused by an infected individual — of Omicron was above 3 over the period studied.
“This study provides further evidence of the very substantial extent to which Omicron can evade prior immunity given by both infection or vaccination,” said Neil Ferguson, a professor at Imperial College London.
“This level of immune evasion means that Omicron poses a major, imminent threat to public health,” Ferguson said in a statement.
Controlling for vaccine status, age, sex, ethnicity, asymptomatic status, region and specimen date, Omicron was associated with a 5.40 fold higher risk of reinfection compared with Delta, the study found.
The reinfection risk estimated in the current study suggests this protection has fallen to 19 per cent against an Omicron infection, according to the researchers.
They found a significantly increased risk of developing a symptomatic Omicron case compared to Delta for those who were two or more weeks past their second vaccine dose, and two or more weeks past their booster dose for AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines.
“Depending on the estimates used for vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection from the Delta variant, this translates into vaccine effectiveness estimates against symptomatic Omicron infection of between 0 per cent and 20 per cent after two doses, and between 55 per cent and 80 per cent after a booster dose,” the researchers added.
Covid cases have surged to record levels as the fast-spreading omicron variant takes hold. Positive tests have exceeded 90,000 for each of the past two days, and ministers have said infections are doubling every two to three days, reports Asian Lite News
Health Secretary Sajid Javid declined to rule out stronger Covid-19 rules before Christmas after the nation’s top health advisers urged greater limits to contain infections they estimate are running in the hundreds of thousands per day.
“It’s time to be more cautious: we know this thing is spreading more rapidly,” Javid told BBC News on Sunday.
When asked whether he could guarantee a so-called circuit-breaker lockdown wouldn’t be imposed within days, he replied: “There are no guarantees in this pandemic. At this point, we just have to keep everything under review.”
Covid cases have surged to record levels as the fast-spreading omicron variant takes hold. Positive tests have exceeded 90,000 for each of the past two days, and ministers have said infections are doubling every two to three days.
Minutes released Saturday by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, or SAGE, suggested that without stronger rules, hospitalizations could reach a peak of at least 3,000 a day — far above current levels.
The projections put Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a bind, squeezed between scientific advisers calling for urgent action, and MPs who just last week rebelled in record numbers against far milder Covid rules than SAGE now says are warranted to keep the National Health Service afloat.
To make matters worse for the prime minister, on Saturday evening, his minister in charge of post-Brexit negotiations, Lord David Frost, quit his post, openly undermining Johnson over both his negotiations with the European Union and his response to the surging pandemic.
“We also need to learn to live with Covid,” Frost wrote in his resignation letter to Johnson. “I hope we can get back on track soon and not be tempted by the kind of coercive measures we have seen elsewhere.”
The letter showed the kind of pressures being exerted on Johnson by his own party to avoid tougher regulations. Last week, 100 Tory MPs voted against plans to introduce Covid passes as a requirement of entry to venues and large events. The measure was only approved because of support from the opposition Labour Party.
The “crisis of confidence” in Johnson’s leadership from the Tories “is impacting on the government’s public health response,” Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting told Sky, adding that Javid “looked like a hostage to his own party.”
Adding to the pressure on the country’s health system, the British Medical Association said almost 50,000 NHS staff could be off sick by Christmas if the government doesn’t act.
While stopping short of calling for a fresh lockdown, SAGE said bringing back some of the restrictions used earlier in the year could “substantially reduce” the peak in cases. UK papers have been filled with speculation that tighter rules may be introduced right after Christmas.
Johnson must now decide whether to risk the wrath of his rank-and-file MPs to bring in tougher measures. They’re already angry at missteps by the prime minister that started with his botched attempt to prevent Parliament’s suspension of his friend, Conservative MP Owen Paterson, over lobbying violations. That culminated in the party’s calamitous defeat in a special election on Thursday to replace Paterson — whose former seat of North Shropshire had been Tory for almost two centuries.
Javid told Sky that the government needs to balance scientific advice with the impact measures such as lockdowns have on society, businesses and children.
He said the UK is in a different situation now than earlier in the year because of its vaccination program, with over half of adults having received a booster.
“If there was a need to take any further action, we would recall parliament and it would have to be a decision for parliament,” he said.
Cabinet Office Minister Steve Barclay will hold talks on Sunday with regional governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to discuss how to approach the surge in Covid cases, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Existential Threat
The SAGE document said omicron is spreading fastest in London, where Mayor Sadiq Khan on Saturday declared a “major incident,” allowing the city to coordinate emergency services and access government support. Khan on Sunday told BBC News he thinks it’s “inevitable” new restrictions will be needed.
“Sooner rather than later we’re going to need to look at social distancing, we’re going to need to look at household mixing,” Khan said.
Khan said that even absent a formal lockdown, the current wave of the virus is an “existential” threat to businesses in the city center, including hospitality and theaters, as customers stay away in droves. He urged fresh government assistance.
The government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies said it was “almost certain” that hundreds of thousands of people were being infected with the variant every day and were not being picked up in the official figures, reports Asian Lite News
Britain reported a surge in cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant which government advisors said could be just the tip of the iceberg, and London’s mayor declared a “major incident” to help the city’s hospitals cope.
The number of Omicron cases recorded across the country hit almost 25,000 as of 1800 GMT on Friday, up by more than 10,000 cases from 24 hours earlier, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said.
Seven people believed to have had the Omicron variant had died as of Thursday, up from one death in the UKHSA’s previous data which ran up to Tuesday. Admissions to hospital of people thought to have the variant increased to 85 from 65.
The government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) said it was “almost certain” that hundreds of thousands of people were being infected with the variant every day and were not being picked up in the figures.
SAGE said without a further tightening of Covid-19 rules, “modelling indicates a peak of at least 3,000 hospital admissions per day in England,” they said in minutes of a meeting on December 16.
Last January, before Britain’s vaccination campaign gathered speed, daily hospital admissions in the United Kingdom as a whole surged above 4,000.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has faced a rebellion in his governing Conservative Party over some of the measures he has taken so far to try to curb Covid-19’s latest spread. A newspaper said that Johnson’s Brexit minister, David Frost, had resigned in part because of the new rules.
The advisors said it was too early to assess the severity of disease caused by Omicron but if there was a modest reduction compared to the Delta variant, “very high numbers of infections would still lead to significant pressure on hospitals”.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan declared a “major incident” – which allows for closer coordination between public agencies and possibly more central government support – as Covid-19 hospital admissions in the city rose by nearly 30% this week.
He said health worker absences had also increased.
“This is a statement of how serious things are,” he said.
Khan, from the opposition Labour Party, also declared a major incident in January, when rising Covid-19 cases threatened to overwhelm hospitals.
The Omicron variant is estimated to account for more than 80% of new Covid-19 cases in London, officials said on Friday.
Johnson was due to chair an emergency committee meeting over the weekend with the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which have their own powers over public health.
A report in The Times newspaper said officials were preparing draft rules which, if introduced, would ban indoor mixing in England — except for work — for two weeks after Christmas when pubs and restaurants would be limited to outdoor table service.
People would be able to meet in groups of up to six outdoors, the newspaper said, adding that ministers were yet to formally consider the plans.
Johnson said on Friday “we are not closing things down”.
A government spokesperson said the government would continue to “look closely at all the emerging data and we’ll keep our measures under review as we learn more about this variant”.
The number of all new Covid-19 cases reported in official data fell to 90,418 from a record high of more than 93,000 on Friday, but that was still the country’s second-highest daily toll. Figures typically dip at the weekend.
Cases were up 44.4% over the seven days to December 18 compared with the previous week.
Police clashed with a group of protesters opposed to the latest Covid-19 restrictions near Johnson’s Downing Street office and residence on Saturday. A number of officers were injured but so far no arrests had been made, police said.
Israel bans travel to ten more countries over Omicron scare
Israel’s Ministry of Health on Sunday said it decided to ban travel to ten more countries to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19…reports Asian Lite News
The ban will take effect on Wednesday and will include the United States, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Morocco, Portugal, Canada, Switzerland and Turkey, which will be labeled as “red” countries, Xinhua news agency reported citing the ministry.
Israel bans travel to ten more countries over Omicron scare
The list of “red” countries already includes most of the African countries, eight European countries and the United Arab Emirates.
All Israelis returning from the banned countries, including vaccinated and recovered ones, must enter quarantine for at least seven days.
Foreign nationals are not allowed to travel from these countries to Israel, except in humanitarian cases with the approval of a special governmental committee.
To date, the ministry has reported 134 cases of the Omicron variant, of which 86 are passengers who have recently returned from abroad.
