Vaccine mandates blocked in US despite Omicron warning
The US Supreme Court struck down vaccine mandates as the WHO issued a plea to unvaccinated people amid Omicron surge.
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The US Supreme Court blocked the White House’s vaccine mandate for businesses as the Omicron variant continued to spread throughout the country.
The court ruled the mandate would represent a “significant encroachment into the lives — and health — of a vast number of employees”.
The vaccination-or-testing mandate at large private companies was announced after months of public appeals to get vaccinated against Covid, which has killed more than 845,000 people in the United States.
While the Supreme Court struck down the mandate for companies with more than 100 employees, they allowed it to remain for health care workers at facilities receiving federal funding.
Unvaccinated employees would have had to present weekly negative tests and remain masked while at work, with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) giving businesses until February 9 to comply under the threat of fines.
“Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA [The Occupational Safety and Health Administration] the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly,” the court said.
“Requiring the vaccination of 84 million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees, certainly falls in the latter category,” they added.
Vaccination has become a politically polarising issue in the United States, where about 63 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated.
A coalition of 26 business associations had filed suit against the OSHA regulations and several Republican-led states had challenged the mandate for health care workers.
Former President Donald Trump welcomed the businesses ruling. “The Supreme Court has spoken, confirming what we all knew: Biden’s disastrous mandates are unconstitutional,” Trump said in a statement. “We are proud of the Supreme Court for not backing down. No mandates!”
President Joe Biden said it is now up to states and individual employers to determine whether they should be requiring employees “to take the simple and effective step of getting vaccinated.”
Omicron less severe even for unvaccinated, new study shows
A new study from South Africa, however, suggests unvaccinated people who catch Omicron are less likely to fall seriously ill compared to the previous variants.
The study in the Western Cape region compared 11,609 patients from the first three Covid waves, with 5,144 from the new Omicron-driven surge.
It found that 8 per cent of patients were hospitalised or died within two weeks of testing positive during the Omicron wave compared to the 16.5 per cent in the first three waves.
The study, led by the National Institute of Communicable Diseases in the Western Cape region, compared 11,609 patients from the first three COVID-19 waves with 5,144 patients from the new Omicron-driven wave.
“After adjusting for age, sex, comorbidities and subdistrict there was a substantially reduced hazard of death in wave four compared to wave three,” the study, led by the National Institute of Communicable Diseases in the Western Cape region, said.
They added there was a 25 per cent reduction in severe illness or death with Omicron compared to Delta even after accounting for previous infections.
“In the Omicron-driven wave, severe COVID-19 outcomes were reduced mostly due to protection conferred by prior infection and/or vaccination, but intrinsically reduced virulence may account for an approximately 25 per cent reduced risk of severe hospitalisation or death compared to Delta,” researchers said.
WHO’s Omicron warning for the unvaccinated
The new research conflicts with the World Health Organisation, which has warned Omicron is especially dangerous for those not vaccinated.
The WHO said the global surge in cases was being driven by Omicron, which is more transmissible than the previously dominant Delta variant.
More than 15 million cases were reported to the WHO last week — with millions more cases thought to have gone unrecorded.
But the UN health agency insisted there should be no surrender to the variant, dismissing the notion that it could be a welcome conduit to ending the pandemic.
“While Omicron causes less severe disease than Delta, it remains a dangerous virus — particularly for those who are unvaccinated,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference.
“We mustn’t allow this virus a free ride or wave the white flag, especially when so many people around the world remain unvaccinated.” The “overwhelming majority” of people admitted to hospitals are unjabbed, he added.
While vaccines remain very effective at preventing death and severe Covid-19 disease, they do not fully prevent transmission, said Tedros.
“More transmission means more hospitalisations, more deaths, more people off work — including teachers and health workers — and more risk of another variant emerging that is even more transmissible and more deadly than Omicron.”
Tedros said that the numbers of deaths worldwide had stabilised at around 50,000 per week.
“Learning to live with this virus does not mean we can, or should, accept this number of deaths,” he said.
The WHO says Omicron had been identified in 149 countries by January 6. Some hope that due to its increased transmissibility, Omicron will replace more severe variants and see Covid-19 shift from a pandemic into an endemic disease that is more manageable.
But WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said: “This is not the time to declare this is a welcome virus.”
Maria Van Kerkhove the WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19, said it was difficult to predict the road ahead and Omicron was unlikely to be the last variant preoccupying minds at the UN health agency.
“We expect the virus will continue to evolve and become more fit... we expect to see outbreaks among unvaccinated individuals,” she said.
“The virus is well on its way to becoming endemic — but we’re not there yet.”
Meanwhile Tedros said pregnant women were not at higher risk of catching Covid-19, but were at higher risk of developing severe disease if they did so.
He called for pregnant women to have access to vaccines, and to be included in trials for new treatments and jabs.
JOHNSON FIGHTS FOR POLITICAL SURVIVAL
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was fighting for his political future on Thursday local time as his Conservatives descended into open internal warfare after he belatedly apologised for attending a party during the coronavirus lockdown.
The apparent breach of coronavirus restrictions has enraged the public, who were forced to abide by rules that prevented them from visiting sick and dying loved ones, or attending funerals.
Most cabinet members rallied around Johnson after his mea culpa, but the backing given by some such as Rishi Sunak, his powerful finance minister and potential successor, was distinctly lukewarm.
The prime minister himself went to ground on Thursday, cancelling a planned trip to northern England after a family member came down with Covid-19, in scrupulous adherence to his government’s rules.
While expressing “heartfelt apologies”, Johnson on Wednesday sparked ridicule by saying he had believed the May 2020 gathering was a work event.
On Wednesday, Mr Johnson apologised to Britons after he finally admitted to attending a lockdown-busting drinks party at Downing Street.
After 24 hours of chaos and questions, the under siege Mr Johnson came clean about the garden party – but claimed he was there for just 25 minutes and it was a “work event”, reports The Sun.
The British PM, however, deflected calls to resign as opposition leader Keir Starmer called him a “man without shame”.
After days of dismal headlines and collapsing poll ratings, Mr Johnson said he regarded the newly revealed boozy get-together in May 2020 as a work event for Downing Street staff.
He conceded he did not appreciate how the event would look to millions of Britons who were respecting Covid rules, even missing out on farewells to dying relatives.
“And to them and to this House I offer my heartfelt apologies,” Mr Johnson told a stormy session of questions in the House of Commons.
“With hindsight I should have sent everyone back inside. I should have found some other way to thank them (his staff),” he added, admitting he had been present for about 25 minutes.
Mr Starmer said the British public believed Mr Johnson was “lying through his teeth”.
“The only question is will the British public kick him out, will his party kick him out, or will he do the decent thing and resign?
“The prime minister’s a man without shame,” Mr Starmer added, for the first time joining other opposition leaders in demanding Mr Johnson’s ouster.
‘TAKING PUBLIC FOR FOOLS’
Mr Johnson — who was fired twice in previous jobs for lying to his bosses — had managed to weather one of the world’s worst Covid death tolls thanks to a successful mass vaccination campaign, and his record as the leader who effected Britain’s Brexit withdrawal from the European Union.
But Hannah Brady, spokesperson for the pressure group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: “The prime minister’s lies have finally caught up with him.
“Not content with kicking bereaved families like mine in the teeth by breaking the rules he set and then lying to us about it, he’s now taking the British public for fools by pretending he ‘didn’t know it was a party’.” Even some on his own side want Johnson to go, but in response to Starmer, he urged all sides to await the findings of an internal inquiry he has commissioned by a senior civil servant.
“He is not resigning,” Mr Johnson’s press secretary told reporters. There have been a flurry of accusations about Downing Street parties held during lockdowns in 2020 which have dogged Mr Johnson since late last year, sparking public revulsion.
Lisa Wilkie was forced to film her brother dying of Covid in intensive care in May 2020, because their mother was not allowed to visit the hospital under the restrictions.
“People died sticking to the rules, and they broke those rules to have a bottle of wine,” a tearful Ms Wilkie told the BBC.
Mr Johnson’s apology followed the same pattern as previous allegations of Downing Street parties during lockdowns in 2020: denials or stonewalling, followed by a mea culpa in the face of documentary proof.
‘DEAD MAN WALKING’
Senior Conservative MP Roger Gale said it was now clear that Johnson had misled parliament and was, politically, a “dead man walking”.
“Unfortunately what the prime minister has said today leaves people like me in an impossible situation,” he told the BBC, warning that Tory backbenchers could now hold a no-confidence vote.
Nigel Mills, another Conservative politician, said: “If the prime minister knowingly attended a party I don’t see how he can survive, having accepted resignations for far less.”
Mr Johnson was rocked when the email was leaked late Monday in which a senior aide invited more than 100 colleagues to the event on May 20, 2020, encouraging them to “bring your own booze”.
The event occurred when the government was ordering members of the public not to meet, even outdoors, and tight restrictions were in place on social mixing, including at funerals.
The party was held just over a month after Johnson had come out of intensive care with Covid, and some reports said it was staged with his full knowledge as a “welcome back” event.
Police at the time were fining people breaching the Covid rules, and had the option to prosecute repeat or egregious offenders.
Johnson could yet face a more serious, criminal probe by London’s Metropolitan Police. Even the front pages of newspapers that normally back him and the Tories were damning.
“It’s my party and I’ll lie low if I want to,” mocked The Sun.
US SMASHES GLOBAL RECORD FOR DAILY VIRUS CASES
The United States reported 1.35 million new coronavirus infections on Monday, local time, according to a Reuters tally.
The figure sets a new record as the highest daily total for any country in the world as the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant shows no signs of slowing or cresting just yet.
The previous record was 1.03 million cases on January 3.
A large number of new cases are reported each Monday due to many states not reporting over the weekend but in any case, the seven-day average for new cases has tripled in two weeks to over 700,000 new infections a day.
The record in new cases came the same day as the nation saw the number of hospitalised coronavirus patients also reach an all-time high, having doubled in three weeks, according to a Reuters tally.
This, despite reports that there are fewer hospitalisations caused by the Omicron variant.
There were more than 136,604 people hospitalised with Covid-19, surpassing the record of 132,051 set a year ago in the pandemic.
As of Monday, the United States has recorded the most Covid deaths with 839,500.
HALF OF EUROPE ON TRACK TO CATCH OMICRON
More than half of people in Europe are projected to catch Omicron by March, the WHO said on Tuesday, as millions in China locked down again exactly two years after Beijing reported the first Covid-19 death.
The highly-transmissible variant has ripped through countries at breakneck pace, forcing governments to impose fresh measures and scramble to roll out vaccine booster shots.
Europe is at the epicentre of alarming new outbreaks alongside mounting hospital admissions and deaths while the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday Omicron could infect half of all people in the region at current rates.
“The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) forecasts that more than 50 per cent of the population in the region will be infected with Omicron in the next six to eight weeks,” said Hans Kluge, regional director for WHO’s European office.
The WHO’s European region covers 53 countries and territories including several in Central Asia, and Kluge said 50 of them had Omicron cases.
Kluge confirmed that Omicron is more transmissible than previous variants, but stressed “approved vaccines do continue to provide good protection against severe disease and death – including for Omicron”.
The WHO also warned against treating Covid like an endemic illness such as the flu, saying the spread of Omicron has not yet stabilised.
The warning came exactly two years after the announcement of the first person dying of a virus only later identified as Covid – a 61-year-old man in Wuhan, China, where the illness was first detected.
Since January 11, 2020, known fatalities in the pandemic have soared to nearly 5.5 million.
The issue of unequal access to vaccines was again raised on Tuesday as the World Economic Forum warned that the widening gap was threatening the co-operation needed to tackle common challenges such as climate change.
“A greater prevalence of Covid-19 in low-vaccination countries than in high-vaccination ones will weigh on worker availability and productivity, disrupt supply chains and weaken consumption,” WEF said in a report.
LEADER WHO HAD ASTRA JAB GETS COVID TWICE
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday he was doing well despite catching Covid-19 for a second time.
“I’m feeling pretty good,” Lopez Obrador, 68, said in a video message played during a news conference led by Interior Minister Adan Augusto Lopez in his absence.
“Let’s not be scared. Fortunately this is a variant that does not have the level of danger of the Delta variant,” Lopez Obrador added, speaking with a croaky voice.
“What do I have? Burning in the throat, hoarseness, a little body ache at first,” he said.
On Monday the president had appeared in front of journalists speaking with a hoarse voice and without a face mask, prompting accusations from critics of irresponsible behaviour.
He said at the time that he planned to get tested for the coronavirus but believed he had the flu.
Hours later, however, he announced that he had Covid-19.
Lopez Obrador overcame a first bout of the coronavirus in early 2021. He has received the AstraZeneca vaccine including a booster on 7 December.
Like many countries, Mexico is in the grip of a new wave of infections following the emergence of the highly contagious Omicron variant and traditional year-end family gatherings.
On Friday, Mexico’s official Covid-19 death toll – the fifth highest in the world – surpassed 300,000, although so far daily fatalities remain far lower than during previous waves.
AIRLINE BLAMED FOR HONG KONG OMICRON SURGE
Embattled airline Cathay Pacific faces possible legal action over an Omicron outbreak its employees are accused of starting in Hong Kong.
Authorities say the recent outbreak has been traced to a Cathay aircrew who breached home quarantine. It has sparked a dramatic tightening of already strict social distancing controls and travel restrictions, AFP has reported.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Tuesday that authorities were investigating “whether this airline has complied with the regulations”.
“We will take the legal action once we have the full evidence of what wrong it has gone into,” Lam said in English.
Cathay Pacific has been decimated by the pandemic, with no domestic market to fall back on in what was an Asian transport and logistics hub.
Cargo flights have been slashed recently because new quarantine rules imposed on crew have left managers struggling to find enough pilots.
Hong Kong has a disastrous vaccination rate, despite having plenty of supplies, with just 62 per cent of its population having had the jab.
That leaves it ahead of only Latvia and Slovakia in a list of the International Monetary Fund’s 39 advanced economies.
It has suspended kindergartens and primary schools until early February.
WUHAN BOMBSHELL FUELS THEORY OF LAB VIRUS LEAK
Western troops who attended the 2019 World Military Games in Wuhan have claimed that they allegedly fell ill with a mystery illness shortly before the Covid outbreak officially began.
A long-serving Canadian officer was among scores of athletes who fell sick while attending the games in the pandemic ground zero city in China – fuelling theories the virus leaked from a nearby lab, The Sun reports.
The whistleblower, who could not be named because he was still serving, told the Mail on Sunday foreign competitors found the usually bustling city of 11 million people “like a ghost town” when they visited in October.
That’s despite the Chinese Communist regime claiming the first confirmed Covid-19 case was not until December.
It has been claimed that the Canadian team were so badly affected with the mystery illness, a quarantine section was set up on their military flight back home.
The officer said a military-appointed doctor later said he almost certainly caught Covid and is now demanding an investigation.
“I’m 100 per cent convinced the virus was present in Wuhan when we were there,” he told the Daily Mail.
“The burden of proof is on the scientific community and intelligence experts to prove – not for athletes,” he said.
“I accept I am not a scientist and it might not be Covid, but why does everyone seem so reluctant to investigate properly?
“It feels like we were present at ground zero of this pandemic that has had such an impact on everyone’s life, with millions of deaths and economies shut down, so why not carry out due diligence. Are the facts just too big to handle?”
The fresh claims have added to widespread theories that the Chinese government covered up the outbreak – leaving the rest of the world with little time to react and stop it from spreading across the globe.
At least 5.5 million people have died worldwide during the pandemic.
And as the Omicron variant takes hold across the world, case numbers have reached record heights of 10 million recorded in one week globally.
Beijing has previously said the first confirmed case of Covid was December 8, 2019, three weeks before the World Health Organisation (WHO) was tipped off by sources in Taiwan.
FRENCH PM SLAMS ATTACKS OVER COVID MEASURES
French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday condemned an attack on a politician from the North Atlantic overseas territory of Saint-Pierre-and-Miquelon by protesters against the government’s Covid-19 health pass.
Video circulating on social media showed Stephane Claireaux, an MP from Macron’s ruling party, being pelted with seaweed and dirt by jeering protesters outside his home on the Canadian island of Newfoundland.
French politician Stéphane Claireaux gets trash thrown on him by protesters against the domestic passport system in 🇫🇷
— Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) January 10, 2022
pic.twitter.com/cNDTvf10al
The incident was “intolerable” and “unacceptable” the French president said during a visit to southern city Nice, complaining of “an intensification of violence” against elected officials.
Tensions over health measures have risen in France since Mr Macron last week said he planned to “piss off” the unvaccinated until they accepted shots.
Sunday’s attack came a few days ahead of the introduction of France’s health pass in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, home to fewer than 6,000 people. The measure, long in place in mainland France, requires people to present proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test to enter public spaces like bars.
“We have to condemn such attacks, because in the end it’s totalitarianism if you subject local or national elected officials to physical pressure … That’s not acceptable in a democracy,” minister for relations with parliament Marc Fesneau said.
Mr Claireaux had earlier told broadcaster France Info that he had been waiting for the demonstrators outside his home “so as to talk to them”.
“There was a car loaded with seaweed … and people started chucking it at me. It was like being stoned. My wife came out to join me on the front step. I dodged a rock that missed our faces by five centimetres,” he said.
Mr Claireaux added that he would be filing criminal charges against those responsible.
“People are free to think that we’re not making the right decisions. We’re all getting death threats by email. At some point this has to stop,” he said.
ITALY BANS UNJABBED, POPE SAYS UNVAXXED NEED ‘REALITY THERAPY’
People in Italy who are not vaccinated against Covid-19 are barred from restaurants or taking domestic flights under new rules which came into force Monday as schools reopened nationwide.
Only those who have recently recovered from a coronavirus infection are exempt from the regulations, which represent a further tightening of restrictions in the face of rising infections.
The majority of schools opened Monday for a new term under government orders, despite calls from head teachers, the doctors’ union and some mayors to delay the return to class for at least two weeks.
However, over 1,000 councils across the country were keeping their schools closed, media reports said.
Top virologist Massimo Galli at the Sacco de Milan hospital said opening schools was “imprudent and unjustified”, while public health expert Walter Ricciardi described the situation as “explosive”.
Italy was the first European country to be hit by the coronavirus in early 2020 and has one of the highest death tolls, at nearly 140,000.
It reported just over 155,000 new cases on Sunday out of a population of 60 million.
Over 86 per cent of over 12s have been vaccinated and jabs are available for younger children. Some 15 per cent of children between five and 11 years old have had their first vaccine.
The virus is “in an exponential phase. The reopening of schools will bring additional stress, and I fear the number of infections will grow at least until the end of January,” virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco said.
Trenitalia said Monday it had cancelled 180 regional trains – affecting 550 routes – due to coronavirus infections. Regional coach companies also reported hundreds of drivers off sick with the virus.
The so-called Super Green Pass showing proof of vaccination or recent recovery is required until March 31 for restaurants, hotels and gyms, and to use local or regional buses, trains, planes and ships.
FFP2 masks are now mandatory in theatres, cinemas, sports stadiums and on all public transport.
Unvaccinated residents on Italy’s small islands, which had warned they risked being cast into “forced exile” by the new rules, have been granted extra time.
The locals – for whom boats and planes are the only means of getting off and on the islands – will be able to continue to travel without the Super pass for health and education reasons until February 10.
It comes as Pope Francis on Monday urged the international community to step up Covid vaccination and said “reality therapy” was needed to battle “baseless information” putting people off getting jabbed.
The Argentine pontiff, who has previously described getting vaccinated as “an act of love”, urged governments to ensure everyone around the world had access to vaccines.
“Frequently people let themselves be influenced by the ideology of the moment, often bolstered by baseless information or poorly documented facts,” he told members of the Vatican’s diplomatic corps.
“The pandemic, on the other hand, urges us to adopt a sort of ‘reality therapy’ that makes us confront the problem head on and adopt suitable remedies to resolve it,” the 85-year old said.
While vaccines were “not a magical means of healing” they were “surely … the most reasonable solution for the prevention of the disease,” Francis said.
But he pointed out the plan for everyone in the world to have equal access to vaccines currently remained “an illusion”.
CHINA LOCKS DOWN THIRD CITY, 20 MILLION NOW AFFECTED
A third Chinese city has locked down its residents because of a Covid-19 outbreak, raising the number of people confined to their homes in China to about 20 million.
The lockdown of Anyang, home to 5.5 million people, was announced late Monday after two cases of the omicron variant were reported. Residents are not allowed to go out and stores have been ordered shut except those selling necessities.
Another 13 million people have been locked down in Xi’an for nearly three weeks, and 1.1 million more in Yuzhou for more than a week. It wasn’t clear how long the lockdown of Anyang would last, as it was announced as a measure to facilitate mass testing of residents, which is standard procedure in China’s strategy of identifying and isolating infected people as quickly as possible.
The lockdowns are the broadest since the shutting down of Wuhan and most of the rest of Hubei province in early 2020 at the start of the pandemic.
It comes as China reported more cases of the highly transmissible Omicron coronavirus variant on Monday, with authorities on high alert over flare-ups in major cities just weeks ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
The emergence of the fast-spreading variant is yet another test of China’s zero Covid strategy, with authorities already battling several outbreaks – including in Xi’an, where 13 million city residents were in their third week of lockdown.
Fears grew about a cluster of infections in the northern city of Tianjin, which was linked to two Omicron cases reported Monday in the city of Anyang around 400 kilometres away.
On Monday, Anyang official Li Chao told reporters that sales of train and long-distance bus tickets out of the city have been suspended, while checkpoints have been set up on all highways out, to “ensure that the outbreak does not spill over into outside areas”.
Meanwhile, city officials said in a statement Sunday that “the general public should not leave Tianjin unless essential to do so”.
Those who need to leave must obtain official permission and test negative for the virus within 48 hours of their departure, they added.
Schools and university campuses have been closed, and trains into Beijing from Tianjin have been cancelled.
Road checkpoints have been set up for vehicles entering the capital.
Tianjin – just 150 kilometres from Beijing – has already ordered the testing of all 14 million residents.
Another 21 cases were reported in the city Monday, although the strain of virus wasn’t confirmed.
Gu Qing, director of the Tianjin Municipal Health Commission, told a press briefing on Monday that the city has so far detected 31 domestic virus cases in the latest outbreak, adding that close contacts have been quarantined.
Footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed masked people in Tianjin’s Nankai district queuing for virus tests on Sunday from medical workers in white hazmat suits.
Gu told reporters at the weekend that the new cases are “mainly students and their parents who go to the same nursery and school.”
Authorities in the city of Anyang in central Henan province also announced the testing of all residents – more than five million people – over the weekend.
The city on Monday reported two Omicron cases linked to the Tianjin cluster. Henan reported 60 new cases Monday but did not break down the tally by variant. The provincial capital Zhengzhou has closed schools and kindergartens, and stopped restaurants from accepting dine-in customers.
Before the latest cluster, China had reported just a handful of Omicron cases, all linked to imported infections.
Authorities are especially wary of major outbreaks ahead of the Winter Olympics, which Beijing will host from February 4-20.
The global event will coincide with the busy Lunar New Year holidays, during which millions of people travel across the country.
The northern Chinese city of Tianjin on Sunday advised its nearly 14 million people to stay home while it conducted mass Covid testing after a spate of recent cases, including two caused by the Omicron variant, state-controlled media reported.
Tianjin emerged as a new area of concern after more than 20 Covid cases were reported there in the last few days, most of them imported from abroad, according to the National Health Commission.
They include at least two cases of the Omicron variant, as well as 15 infections among elementary and middle school students, according to various state media reports.
The city near the capital Beijing launched its mass testing early Sunday, advising residents to stay at or near home to be available for the community-level nucleic-acid screening.
Tianjin residents have been told that until they obtain a negative test result, they will not receive a “green” code on smartphone Covid-tracing apps that nearly all people in China are now required to present when using public transport and in other situations.
Tianjin is a major port city about 150 kilometres southeast of Beijing.
Xi’an, historic home to China’s famed Terracotta Warriors, was locked down last month, forcing its 13 million residents indoors. New case numbers there have slowed in recent days.
Officials have faced complaints from Xi’an residents over chaotic handling of the lockdown, including poor access to food and daily essentials, and viral cases such as a miscarriage suffered by an eight-month pregnant woman who was refused entry to a hospital without a Covid test.
China’s government has touted its initial strict response to Covid, which has largely brought the pandemic under control within its borders, as preferable to sometimes lax and chaotic measures overseas.
International flights are a fraction of pre-pandemic levels with arrivals undergoing strict weeks-long quarantine, and the mandatory track-and-trace apps mean close contacts are usually detected and quarantined quickly.
China is hewing strictly to the zero-tolerance approach as outbreaks continue to emerge in the run-up to next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics.
China’s official tally since the start of the pandemic — just over 100,000 Covid cases — is a fraction of the record one million cases logged by the US in a single day earlier this month.
Cases from China’s chaotic initial outbreak in Wuhan in early 2020, however, are widely believed to have been under-reported.
China’s official death toll has stayed under 5,000.
AFRICA’S COVID CASES TOP 10 MILLION, INDIA’S CASES SOAR
Africa has registered a total of more than 10 million coronavirus cases, according to figures from the African Union’s health watchdog seen by AFP on Sunday.
Data released by the Africa Centres for Disease Control showed that as of Saturday there had been 10,028,508 cases reported by the African Union’s 55 member states since the outbreak of the pandemic.
A total of 231,157 deaths were recorded, the CDC said.
Infections have soared since the highly contagious Omicron variant was discovered in South Africa in late November, prompting a number of countries on the continent to impose new restrictions.
However, vaccine uptake in Africa, home to nearly 1.2 billion people, has been low, due to poor access to jabs and some vaccine hesitancy.
It comes as India began a Covid-19 booster shot campaign for frontline workers and vulnerable people aged 60 and above on Monday as authorities grapple with a rapidly escalating outbreak driven by the Omicron variant.
Daily case numbers are approaching the enormous figures seen last year, when thousands died each day and workers maintained round-the-clock funeral pyres for the mass cremation of virus victims.
Nearly 180,000 new infections were recorded overnight, up nearly six times from a week earlier, with several urban centres imposing night-time curfews and restrictions on public gatherings.
“We’ve seen the number of cases increasing,” said Sheetal Vaishnav, a doctor helping oversee Monday’s vaccinations at a clinic in the capital New Delhi.
“It’s necessary that we start protecting our population more.” People aged 60 and above with pre-existing medical conditions, health professionals, and other essential workers are all eligible for a booster nine months after their second jab.
“I want to keep myself safe in this pandemic, that’s why I got it,” said Sunil, a municipal worker who received his latest shot on Monday.
“Nothing happened in the first one, and nothing in the second one, what can go wrong with the third one?”
GREECE SETS BOOSTER DEADLINE
Greece on Sunday set a February deadline for people to receive coronavirus booster jabs and will bar those without the additional dose from most indoor venues.
“From February 1, anyone who has not taken the booster dose after a seven month period (from the second dose) will be considered unvaccinated,” Greek Health Minister Thanos Plevris said in an interview with the Ant1 broadcaster.
“The certificate will be valid, because it is a European certificate valid for nine months, but they will not be able to have the privileges and advantages as to access indoor and other activities that are for the fully vaccinated.”
Greece is struggling to contain a surge of the Omicron variant and encouraging those not vaccinated to get jabbed as well as imposing further restrictions for the vaccinated.
Since mid-November, unvaccinated people have been largely barred from indoor spaces, including restaurants, cinemas, museums and gyms, even if they test negative for Covid-19.
Ahead of New Year’s Eve, the Greek government has implemented new measures as daily cases soared, after Christmas celebrations.
Until January 16, restaurants and entertainment venues are required to close at midnight, are only able to seat tables of six people while music is banned.
Up to half of employees in the public and private sectors are advised to work from home, up from 20 per cent previously.
The country has recorded 1,489,024 coronavirus cases and 21,328 related deaths since the start of the pandemic.
On December 14, the country said a record 130 people had died of Covid in 24 hours, but that daily figure has since dropped below 100.
On Saturday, Greece announced another 65 people had died of the virus.
JAB MANDATES COULD MAKE COVID ENDEMIC THIS YEAR: BIDEN CHIEF
Covid-19 could become endemic sometime this year as vaccination rates increase, getting the US to a place where Americans “learn to live with it,” a former member of US President Biden’s coronavirus task force said Sunday.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who was a member of Biden’s Transition Covid-19 Advisory Board, said the virus could finally get under control with the help of vaccine mandates. That would make it endemic like the flu, which is a constant presence but not a major concern.
“We think that over the course of 2022, we will get to an endemic stage, and … we need a strategic plan for that, that covers vaccines, getting more people vaccinated, and the only way to do that, as we’ve been very clear over time, is mandates,” Emanuel said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Emanuel said new treatments and other mitigation measures will also play a role in helping the virus become more manageable.
“We need to improve our ventilation system. We need to get more therapies and get the link between a positive test and getting a therapy much closer so you can actually start in three days, and not only the rich and well-off get it,” he said.
“Those are the kinds of things we need to put in place over the next three months to be prepared when Covid is really just in the air, like RSV, another respiratory virus, like influenza, like adenovirus, all the respiratory viruses. It’s going to be here. We’re going to learn to live with it,” he said.
But with the spread of the coronavirus’s Omicron variant, the country is still very much in the pandemic, Emanuel said.
“I would say we’re not yet in the endemic stage. We’re still in the pandemic stage. If you’ve got 1,500 people a day dying from this disease, it’s still a pandemic, and Omicron is spreading,” he said.
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