Category: Corona Virus

Two years ago Wednesday, the first case of a mysterious new respiratory disease was discovered in Wuhan, China. Now, the Omicron variant has deepened concerns about just how much longer the coronavirus pandemic will last.

The big picture: More than 5 million people have died since that first case. Most people on earth have lived through some form of lockdown. 54% of the global population has had at least one vaccination, though the shots have been distributed unevenly.

Here's a look at the world's pandemic journey over the past two years:

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Two years of COVID-19 - Axios

The coronavirus pandemic that has so far killed more than 5 million people worldwide is far from over and the next one could be even more lethal, the creator of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has said.

As fears grow over the threat posed by the highly mutated Omicron variant, detected in more than 30 countries, Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert cautioned that while it was increasingly obvious that this pandemic is not done with us, the next one could be worse.

The message came as ministers were told by one of their scientific advisers that the new variant was spreading pretty rapidly in the UK, and travel rules starting on Tuesday would be too late to prevent a potential wave of infections. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) on Sunday night reported 86 new Omicron cases, taking the total identified so far to 246.

Delivering the 44th Richard Dimbleby lecture, due to be broadcast on the BBC on Monday, Gilbert said that despite the destructive nature of a two-year pandemic that had already infected more than 265 million people, the next one might be more contagious and claim even more lives.

This will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods, she said. The truth is, the next one could be worse. It could be more contagious, or more lethal, or both.

Gilbert, a professor of vaccinology at the University of Oxford whose team developed the Covid vaccine now used in 170 countries, said the scientific advances made and knowledge gained in research fighting against the coronavirus must not be lost.

We cannot allow a situation where we have gone through all we have gone through, and then find that the enormous economic losses we have sustained mean that there is still no funding for pandemic preparedness, she said. Just as we invest in armed forces and intelligence and diplomacy to defend against wars, we must invest in people, research, manufacturing and institutions to defend against pandemics.

Gilbert said the new variant contained mutations already known to increase transmissibility of the virus and that antibodies induced by vaccination or previous infections might be less effective at preventing infection with Omicron. But she also said reduced protection against infection does not necessarily mean reduced protection against severe disease and death. Gilbert added: Until we know more, we should be cautious, and take steps to slow down the spread of this new variant.

From Tuesday, all passengers arriving in the UK will be required to show proof of a negative PCR or lateral flow test taken no earlier than 48 hours before departure. Nigeria will also be added to the travel red list on Monday.

But Prof Mark Woolhouse, of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), said the new travel rules were too late to make a material difference. He told BBC Ones The Andrew Marr Show: I think that may be a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

If Omicron is here in the UK, and it certainly is, if theres community transmission in the UK, and it certainly looks that way, then its that community transmission that will drive a next wave. The cases that are being imported are important, we want to detect those and isolate any positive cases we find, as we would for any case anywhere. But I think its too late to make a material difference to the course of the Omicron wave if were going to have one.

Though the emergence of the new variant has caused alarm worldwide, Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease official, told CNN thus far it does not look like theres a great degree of severity to it but he added that it was too early to draw definitive conclusions and more study was needed.

As of 9am on Sunday there were another 43,992 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK. A further 54 people died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus.

The president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said the NHS would be in a difficult position if the Omicron variant were to trigger a surge in hospital admissions. Dr Katherine Henderson said hospitals were already struggling to cope. It is pretty spectacularly bad now, it will get worse and if the new variant becomes a thing in terms of numbers and translates into hospitals admissions we are going to be in a very, very difficult position.

The government is expected to announce the chair of its long-awaited Covid public inquiry within the next fortnight, having pledged to bereaved families that a chair would be in place by Christmas. MPs have called for the inquiry to investigate the effect that rule-breaking by public figures had on public compliance.

Meanwhile, Keir Starmer has made his strongest intervention to date to criticise those resisting taking the vaccine, after the Guardian reported that unvaccinated patients are dominating ICU beds.

The Labour leader, who will receive his booster jab on Monday, said those who are unvaccinated should consider the impact of their decision, think again, and get vaccinated.

It is frustrating and worrying that medics are seeing too many hospital beds and NHS resources are taken by those that have chosen not to get the vaccine, he said.

He also said the government needed to radically boost efforts to get third jabs into arms. New analysis by Labour reveals the total number of booster vaccinations currently being administered remains significantly below the number of jabs that were being delivered at the same point in the first vaccine rollout earlier this year.

During the initial vaccine rollout, the number of vaccinations peaked at 602,265 a day on average. In contrast, the current total number of vaccines now being delivered a day on average is 435,542, over a quarter less than in March.

Separately, millions of people are being urged to get a flu jab by Friday to maximise protection over Christmas, as figures reveal more than half of all those who are pregnant or have underlying health conditions have still not been vaccinated. The UKHSA is encouraging eligible people to have the vaccine by 10 December to allow it take full effect before the festive season.

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Covid not over and next pandemic could be more lethal, says Oxford jab creator - The Guardian

People protest a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for municipal workers on Oct. 28 in New York City. Polling, vaccination and mortality data all suggest that Republicans are the biggest group of unvaccinated Americans and are suffering the worst consequences as a result. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images hide caption

People protest a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for municipal workers on Oct. 28 in New York City. Polling, vaccination and mortality data all suggest that Republicans are the biggest group of unvaccinated Americans and are suffering the worst consequences as a result.

Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden. That's according to a new analysis by NPR that examines how political polarization and misinformation are driving a significant share of the deaths in the pandemic.

NPR looked at deaths per 100,000 people in roughly 3,000 counties across the U.S. from May 2021, the point at which vaccinations widely became available. People living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.7 times the death rates of those that went for Biden. Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher COVID-19 mortality rates.

In October, the reddest tenth of the country saw death rates that were six times higher than the bluest tenth, according to Charles Gaba, an independent health care analyst who's been tracking partisanship trends during the pandemic and helped to review NPR's methodology. Those numbers have dropped slightly in recent weeks, Gaba says: "It's back down to around 5.5 times higher."

The trend was robust, even when controlling for age, which is the primary demographic risk of COVID-19 mortality. The data also reveal a major contributing factor to the death rate difference: The higher the vote share for Trump, the lower the vaccination rate.

The analysis only looked at the geographic location of COVID-19 deaths. The exact political views of each person taken by the disease remains unknowable. But the strength of the association, combined with polling information about vaccination, strongly suggests that Republicans are being disproportionately affected.

Recent polling data that show Republicans are now the largest group of unvaccinated individuals in the United States, more than any other single demographic group. Polling also shows that mistrust in official sources of information and exposure to misinformation, about both COVID-19 and the vaccines, run high among Republicans.

"An unvaccinated person is three times as likely to lean Republican as they are to lean Democrat," says Liz Hamel, vice president of public opinion and survey research at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health policy think tank that tracks attitudes toward vaccination. Political affiliation is now the strongest indicator of whether someone is vaccinated, she says: "If I wanted to guess if somebody was vaccinated or not and I could only know one thing about them, I would probably ask what their party affiliation is."

It was not always this way. Earlier in the pandemic, many different groups expressed hesitancy toward getting vaccinated. African Americans, younger Americans and rural Americans all had significant portions of their demographic that resisted vaccination. But over time, the vaccination rates in those demographics have risen, while the rate of Republican vaccination against COVID-19 has flatlined at just 59%, according to the latest numbers from Kaiser. By comparison, 91% of Democrats are vaccinated.

Being unvaccinated increases the risk of death from COVID-19 dramatically, according to the CDC. The vast majority of deaths since May, around 150,000, have occurred among the unvaccinated, says Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

While vaccine hesitancy exists in many different groups, Hotez suspects that the deaths are "overwhelmingly" concentrated in more politically conservative communities. "How does this make sense at any level?" he asks.

The consequences for individuals are real. Mark Valentine still remembers when his brother called him to tell him he had contracted coronavirus. Valentine is a trial consultant in North Carolina. His brother Phil, 61, was a well-known conservative talk show host in Nashville, Tenn., who often expressed skepticism about vaccination.

Conservative talk radio host Phil Valentine (right), pictured with his brother, Mark (second from left). Phil had been skeptical about COVID and the COVID vaccines, sometimes mocking them on his talk show. Earlier this year, he contracted the virus and died. Courtesy of Mark Valentine hide caption

Conservative talk radio host Phil Valentine (right), pictured with his brother, Mark (second from left). Phil had been skeptical about COVID and the COVID vaccines, sometimes mocking them on his talk show. Earlier this year, he contracted the virus and died.

Neither brother was vaccinated, and neither one was particularly worried about Phil's positive result. His brother said he was trying several alternative therapies commonly promoted in conservative circles. "He said, 'I've got the ivermectin, I started it this morning, and I don't think it's going to be a big deal,' " Mark Valentine recalls. "And frankly I didn't think about it anymore."

But a week later, Mark said he got a call from his brother's wife saying that the two were going to the hospital. "Before I knew it, he was in there and I couldn't get to him, couldn't talk to him," Valentine recalls. "His situation took a nosedive like you can't believe."

Phil Valentine died in August about five weeks after he announced he had tested positive for COVID-19.

Misinformation appears to be a major factor in the lagging vaccination rates. The Kaiser Family Foundation's polling shows Republicans are far more likely to believe false statements about COVID-19 and vaccines. A full 94% of Republicans think one or more false statements about COVID-19 and vaccines might be true, and 46% believe four or more statements might be true. By contrast, only 14% of Democrats believe four or more false statements about the disease.

Belief in multiple false statements highly correlates with vaccination status, Hamel says. "If you believe that the vaccines can damage your fertility, that they contain a microchip and that the government is inflating the number of COVID-19 deaths, you're going to think really differently about whether to get vaccinated."

Perhaps the most pernicious pieces of misinformation have to do with the perceived severity of COVID-19 itself. The most widely believed false statement was: "The government is exaggerating the number of COVID-19 deaths."

Hamel says that underestimating the severity of COVID-19 appears to be a major reason why Republicans in particular have fallen behind in vaccination: "We've seen lower levels of personal worry among Republicans who remain unvaccinated," she says. "That's a real contrast with what we saw in communities of color, where there was a high level of worry about getting sick."

Complacency around the risks of contracting COVID-19 certainly seemed to be a major reason why the Valentine brothers avoided vaccination. While not conspiracy theorists, they were staunch Trump supporters. The arrival of coronavirus just ahead of the presidential election of 2020 seemed like "the most fortuitous pandemic in the history of the world" for the Democratic Party, recalls Mark.

Despite the media coverage, Phil Valentine didn't believe COVID-19 was serious as long as you were healthy: "He said, 'The likelihood of me getting it is low. In the unlikely event that I do get it, the likelihood that I will survive it is 99-plus %,' " Mark Valentine recalls.

Vaccine researcher Peter Hotez is deeply troubled by the current state of affairs. A winter surge in COVID-19 cases is brewing, and the newly discovered omicron variant has the potential to make things far worse.

He thinks the elements of the Republican Party that are endorsing anti-vaccine ideas need to take a big step back. "I'm not trying to change Republican thinking or far-right thinking," he says. "I'm trying to say: 'The anti-science doesn't belong; it doesn't fit. ... Just stop it and save lives.' ''

Before his illness, Phil Valentine had sometimes promoted unproven alternative therapies and taken a mocking tone toward vaccination. As his situation deteriorated, Mark says the talk show host realized he needed to encourage his listeners to get vaccinated. Phil told his brother, "'My fear is that because I didn't get it, other folks may not get it," Mark Valentine recalls. The family put out a statement in support of vaccination, and Mark went on to his brother's talk show to encourage listeners to take the shot.

He also headed to his local Walmart to get vaccinated. "The guy comes out; he said, 'Do you have any questions or concerns?' " Mark Valentine recalls. "I said, 'Hell yeah, I've got both, but do it anyway.' "

Methodology

Vaccination rate data are the rate of vaccination among all people 18 years of age or older, as of Nov. 30. They are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 residents are calculated by dividing the deaths from COVID-19 in a county since May 1 by the county's population. County population data come from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2020 decennial census. May 1 was chosen as the start date of our analysis because that is roughly the time when vaccines became universally available to adults ages 18 and older. COVID-19 death data is collected by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University and is current as of Nov. 30.

2020 election result data are from MIT Election Data and Science Lab.

Alaska does not report election results by county-equivalent area, so it is excluded from the analysis. Nebraska is excluded from the analysis because does not report county-level COVID-19 statistics. Hawaii is excluded because it does not report county-level vaccine data. Some counties that have reported no COVID-19 deaths since May 1 may have stopped reporting. These counties generally have very small populations and have a negligible impact on the weighted averages. Erring on the side of caution, we include all data unless it is known that they are in error.

All averages are weighted by county population. The overall average represents the average of the 3,011 counties included in the analysis.

Emily Gurley, Professor of the Practice and Emily Pond, Research Data Analyst, both of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health helped review our methodology.

NPR's Huo Jingnan contributed to this story.

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Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates. Misinformation is to blame - NPR

A Norwegian Cruise Line ship with at least 10 passengers and crew members infected with COVID-19 has docked in New Orleans

ByThe Associated Press

December 5, 2021, 8:04 PM

3 min read

NEW ORLEANS -- A Norwegian Cruise Line ship with at least 10 passengers and crew members infected with COVID-19 docked Sunday in New Orleans, where health officials said they were trying to disembark people without worsening the spread of the coronavirus illness.

Local news outlets in New Orleans confirmed the Norwegian Breakaway had arrived in the city. The ship departed New Orleans on Nov. 28. The Louisiana Department of Health said in a late Saturday news release that over the past week, the ship made stops in Belize, Honduras and Mexico.

Norwegian Cruise Line issued a statement that confirmed a handful of COVID-19 cases among guests and crew. The company said all of the identified cases involved people without symptoms of the illness.

Norwegian said it requires all passengers and crew members to have been vaccinated against the coronavirus prior to departure.

We are testing all individuals on Norwegian Breakaway prior to disembarkation, as well as providing post-exposure and quarantine public health guidance by the (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the company's statement said. Any guests who have tested positive for COVID-19 will travel by personal vehicle to their personal residence or self-isolate in accommodations provided by the company.

The state health department which is working with the cruise line and state and local officials to contain the outbreak said at least 10 people on the ship tested positive for COVID-19. More than 3,200 people were on board the ship, officials said.

Some disembarking passengers told WVUE-TV in New Orleans that they were notified about the positive cases on the ship, while others said they had no idea about the outbreak until being asked about it by a reporter.

We didnt hear of this until we kind of heard you talking a second ago, said Don Canole, a passenger from North Carolina. It would have been nice to have known. We would have taken maybe a few more precautions.

Passengers said they were tested for COVID-19 exposure on Saturday before disembarking Sunday. The cruise line also gave passengers take-home rapid tests as they left the ship, according to WVUE.

The company said no changes to scheduled future sailings on the Norwegian Breakaway are currently planned, and the ship was scheduled to depart again Sunday evening.

Cruise ships were an early source of outbreaks last year at the start of the coronavirus pandemic as some ships were rejected at ports and passengers were forced into quarantine. The CDC issued a no-sail order in March 2020, prompting a standstill that ended last June as cruise ships began to leave U.S. ports with new health and safety requirements.

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Cruise ship with COVID-19 infections arrives in New Orleans - ABC News

Several dozen cases of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus have been identified in the United States, a number that is likely to rise, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Sunday on ABCs This Week.

Genetic sequencing is required to determine which variant an infected patient has. In recent months the United States has greatly expanded sequencing efforts, but the process takes time. The C.D.C., for instance, typically takes about 10 days to yield results. According to Dr. Walensky, about 14 percent of all positive P.C.R. tests in the United States are being sequenced.

The variant has a cluster of mutations that have raised alarm around the world, but at this early stage, there are still more questions about it than answers, health officials said on Sunday.

What we dont yet know is how transmissible it will be, how well our vaccines will work, whether it will lead to more severe disease, Dr. Walensky said.

American officials are in frequent communication with experts in South Africa where the variant is now widespread, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nations leading infectious disease doctor, said Sunday on CNNs State of the Union.

How quickly Omicron will spread in the United States, where the highly contagious Delta variant now accounts for 99.9 percent of all cases, remains unknown, Dr. Fauci said. Whats going to happen when you have those two competing with each other? he said, adding that, we have really got to be careful in assessing how severe Omicron might end up being.

A new report from South Africa has fueled hopes that the variant may not cause serious disease, though it remains far too early to conclude that, experts say. The report focuses primarily on 42 patients in a hospital in Gauteng province, the center of the nations Omicron outbreak.

Although the researchers were not able to confirm that all the cases were caused by Omicron, the majority of patients with the virus did not require supplemental oxygen, the report says, and many were not hospitalized for Covid-19 itself. Instead they tested positive for the virus after being admitted for other reasons.

This is a picture that has not been seen in previous waves, wrote Dr. Fareed Abdullah, who directs the Office of AIDS and TB Research at the South African Medical Research Council and is the author of the new report.

But the findings come with major caveats, including the fact the patients were younger than during previous waves, and thus less likely to have severe disease. The data also accounts for just the first two weeks of the outbreak hospitalizations and deaths are often a lagging indicator and could rise in the coming weeks.

Omicrons rapid spread still poses risks, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organizations technical lead for coronavirus response, said on Sunday on CBSs Face the Nation.

Even if we have a large number of cases that are mild, some of those individuals will need hospitalizations, they will need to go into I.C.U., and some people will die, she said. And so more cases can mean more hospitalizations, and more hospitalizations could mean more deaths.

She also urged governments to take swift action by increasing vaccination and encouraging mask wearing, distancing and ventilation to tamp down the spread of Omicron and Delta.

The Biden administration recently announced plans to expand its booster campaign and increase access to rapid tests. On Monday, the United States will begin requiring all incoming air travelers to show proof of a negative test taken the day before departure, regardless of their vaccination status or citizenship.

On Sunday, officials also defended the governments ban on travelers from eight countries in southern Africa. The ban has been criticized for being both unhelpful and overly punitive.

That ban was done at a time when we were really in the dark, Dr. Fauci said, noting that it was intended to buy officials time to gather more information about Omicron. But now that more information is coming in from around the world, officials are frequently re-evaluating the ban, he said.

Hopefully, we will be able to lift that ban within a quite reasonable period of time, he said, adding that we all feel very badly about the hardship that it put on southern Africa.

But officials dismissed the possibility of domestic travel restrictions, noting that they would be impractical. That would be extremely onerous for people who are trying to get around the country for things like holidays, Dr. Francis S. Collins, the National Institutes of Health director, said on NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday. And I dont know how much wed gain by it.

Continued here:

Omicron Variant Cases and Covid News: Live Updates - The New York Times

Costumed people at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City on Nov. 20 for a three-day anime convention. It had begun the day before.Credit...Kena Betancur/Agence France-Presse Getty Images

About 15 people who attended an anime convention in New York last month with a Minnesota man who later was found to have the Omicron variant have also tested positive for the coronavirus, the man has told health officials in his state. It is uncertain whether any of those cases involved the Omicron variant.

The man said that his friends a group of about 30 people had come from all over the country for the event, which ran Nov. 19-21. About half of them also later tested positive for the virus, he told the officials.

In a sign that the convention could have infected more than the Minnesota group, Gov. Ned Lamont reported late Saturday that Connecticuts first case, a man in his 60s, seemed to originate from a relative of the infected man who had recently attended the anime convention. Additional family members were being tested, and both the man and his relative were fully vaccinated and experiencing only mild symptoms.

The Minnesota man, officials said, was fully vaccinated and had gotten a booster just weeks before the convention. He has recovered from mild symptoms that began shortly after the convention ended, and has provided names and contact information of several in his group to health officials. Since the friends live in other states, their names were forwarded to those states health departments. Details of their cases are not known.

The Minnesota mans case was among the first reports of Omicron in the United States, and it presented a worrisome possibility for health officials: Might the anime convention, which drew tens of thousands of people to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center for three days, have been a vector for spreading the new variant, which scientists fear may be able to spread more quickly than any other variant?

After learning that the man had attended a large convention in New York, Kathy Como-Sabetti, manager of the Covid epidemiology section for the Minnesota Department of Public Health, said: I kind of went, Wow, well, this changes our story.

At the Anime NYC conference, focused around a popular animation style that originated in Japan, attendees were fairly compliant about wearing masks, the man told officials. But some rooms were very crowded, at capacity, with crowds standing shoulder to shoulder, he said.

Convention attendees were required to provide proof that they had received at least one vaccine shot and they had to wear masks, according to the convention website. The rules allowed entry immediately after a first dose. People are seen as having full vaccination protection two weeks after a second dose of a two-dose vaccine.

Time will tell how large it becomes, Ms. Como-Sabetti said. Its hard to say that it is a super spreader. Certainly were concerned about that.

Officials cautioned that much remains unknown: The man and his friends could have been infected in other venues at restaurants, hotels or other locations during their trips, or at another time.

Still, the prospect of a cluster of cases raised new questions about the nations virus detection capabilities and the limits of its contact-tracing efforts, which have been disparate and limited since the start of the pandemic.

Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said that he was concerned about the contact-tracing ability of health departments across the country, given their strained resources and the publics general lack of cooperation with investigators. Also worrisome, he said, is the small number of cases that are being tested for the Omicron variant.

Very quickly were going to see a number of Omicron cases around the country in many locations, just as weve seen in Minnesota, he said.

After Minnesota officials learned that the convention attendee had the Omicron variant, they informed the New York City Health Department. City health officials said that they had begun sending text messages and emails to tens of thousands of the anime conventions attendees, urging them to get tested.

Dr. Ted Long, who oversees the citys contact tracing program, said that he was aware of five positive cases so far among New York City residents who attended the anime convention. But he said it was not yet known if those people had been infected by Omicron or Delta, nor was the convention known to be the site where they had gotten sick.

We havent found evidence of widespread transmission at the convention, Adam Shrier, a spokesman for New York Citys contact tracing program, Test and Trace Corps, wrote in an email.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is assisting the Minnesota and New York City health departments in tracking any cases, a spokeswoman said.

Infectious disease specialists said that the first Omicron case to be linked to the anime convention was likely identified in Minnesota because that states health department has a robust genomic sequencing system, and not necessarily because the patient was the original index case.

Organizers of the convention stressed that it was uncertain where the man had contracted the virus.

He was just one person who was at our event, said Kelly Comboni, president of LeftField Media, which organized the convention. There have been no other mass cases reported from our event, and we are now way past two weeks since the conventions end.

Read the rest here:

Vaccine demand grows in the U.S. and so do wait times. - The New York Times

Find an updated count of COVID-19 cases in California and by county on our tracker here.

Omicron hasnt reached Sacramento, but it will, county public officer says

California confirms second omicron case in Los Angeles

Unvaccinated Nevada state workers will be charged an insurance premium

Latest studies suggest previous COVID-19 infection may not fend off omicron variant

Status of COVID-19 vaccine mandate is still up in the air

12:10 p.m.: Convention business in downtown Sacramento has been down but will likely increase in early 2022

As 2021 comes to a close at the end of this month, many organizations are evaluating how the pandemic has affected their bottom lines.

Despite a string of large-scale events since June, including Fridays California International Marathon, in looking at how downtown may fare going into 2022, theres one significant wild card: a possible lack of state office workers, says Mike Testa, president and CEO of Visit Sacramento.

Theres a huge population of California State employees that were working in downtown every day and so many of them are working at home, Testa said. If that continues, theres great concern of the impact that will have on businesses, because its tens of thousands of people on a daily basis who just arent in Sacramento.

Testa says compared with 2019, convention business is a bit down, but several large events scheduled for early 2022 are signaling a likely increase in attendance.

11:48 a.m.: Omicron hasnt reached Sacramento, but it will, county public officer says

The omicron variant of COVID-19 thats sweeping through several South African and European countries has made its way to California, with cases popping up in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

While Sacramento has not seen any cases of the new variant, county public health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye says its still a variant of concern. She said that it's difficult to predict when the variant may spread to Sacramento, but with people traveling for the holidays, its only a matter of time.

We know its going to happen at some point, Kasirye said. So we just need to continue to be vigilant and do the things that we know will protect everyone, like getting vaccinated, getting tested and wearing masks.

As of now, very little is known about omicron. Its not clear how fast it spreads or how severe symptoms can be.

And of course that means we also need to look at, for people that are vaccinated, what is the level of protection, Kasirye said. Our hope is that our vaccines will hold up, and the people that are vaccinated will continue to be protected.

Kasirye said that it's difficult to predict when the variant may spread to Sacramento. But when it does, she says her department will be able to detect it much sooner than they have in the past, thanks to tools the countys lab just received.

In order to identify the variant, you have to do the genome sequencing, Kasirye said. So being able to do it in-house increases our capacity to be able to continue the surveillance.

Prior to getting access to the sequencing tools, Kasirye says the county was sending specimens to the states lab, which delayed identifying new cases of variants. As of now, she says delta is still the dominant variant in Sacramento.

9:27 a.m.: California confirms second omicron case in Los Angeles

California recently reported its second confirmed case of the omicron variant in Los Angeles County.

According to the Associated Press, the countys public health department said a county resident is self-isolating after apparently contracting the infection during a trip to South Africa last month.

The U.S. recorded its first confirmed omicron case on Wednesday in a San Francisco resident who had recently traveled to South Africa and developed mild symptoms after returning on Nov. 22. The little-understood variant was first identified a week ago in South Africa, and its been spreading.

California isnt the only state with infections five other states, including New York, Minnesota, Hawaii, and Colorado, have all identified omicron variant cases.

Experts have said that this shows how quickly mutations of the virus can circumnavigate the globe with speed and ease. Just one day after the first known U.S. case was found in California, tests showed that the omicron variant had infected at least five people in New York City, plus a man from Minnesota who attended an anime convention in Manhattan in late November.

Officials reported another case in a Colorado woman who had recently traveled to southern Africa. The variant was also confirmed in an unvaccinated Hawaii resident with no recent travel history.

9:23 a.m.: Unvaccinated Nevada state workers will be charged an insurance premium

Nevada state workers enrolled in public employee healthcare plans will be charged up to $55 per month if they arent fully vaccinated, according to the Associated Press.

The Nevada Public Employees Benefits Program Board voted on Thursday to impose a surcharge on unvaccinated workers to offset medical costs of those who havent gotten shots. The surcharge will fund the testing that unvaccinated workers are required to undergo.

Laura Rich, the benefits programs executive officer, said Nevada would be the first in the U.S. to impose premiums on state workers who arent vaccinated. Nevada estimates roughly 5,000 state workers arent vaccinated and hopes that the policy will convince more people to get their shots.

9:20 a.m.: Latest studies suggest previous COVID-19 infection may not fend off omicron variant

South African scientists are warning that the new omicron variant may be causing more reinfections among COVID-19 survivors than earlier virus mutations, according to the Associated Press.

A research group has been tracking reinfections in South Africa, and they spotted a jump with the arrival of omicron, saying the timing suggests substantial evidence that the variant can overcome the immunity protection provided by a prior infection more than the extra-contagious delta variant.

The findings are preliminary and were posted online Thursday before scientific review. The researchers didnt say what portion of the reinfections were confirmed as omicron cases or examine how much protection against the new variant vaccines offer.

11:33 a.m.: Status of COVID-19 vaccine mandate is still up in the air

The Biden administrations COVID-19 vaccine mandate in the U.S. is on hold because of legal challenges, but employers can still require the shots, according to the Associated Press.

The regulation says businesses with 100 or more employees need to require COVID-19 vaccinations or have workers tested weekly for the virus. It was set to take effect Jan. 4, 2022, but has faced legal challenges from businesses, Republicans and others.

A federal appeals court put the rule on hold. Then all legal challenges were consolidated in another appeals court, which is taking written arguments from parties that want to join the case.

11:26 a.m.: Omicron and delta variants could spell the return of more restrictive safety measures

Governments worldwide are weighing new measures for those who may be tired of restrictions and vaccine mandates, as the delta variant pushes up cases in Europe and other parts of the world.

According to the Associated Press, different countries have been turning to varying measures to get their populations vaccinated and healthy.

For example, residents over 60 who refuse to get vaccinated will be hit with monthly fines of 100 euros ($113) a month in Greece. Potential carriers of omicron in Israel could be tracked by the nations domestic security agency.

In South Africa, restrictions include curfews and bans on alcohol sales. However, in the U.S., there is essentially no political willpower from either major party to enact any lockdowns or contact tracing. Even enforcing simple measures like mask-wearing has become a political flashpoint.

Governments are facing a thorny calculus made more difficult by the prospect of backlash, increased social divisions and the fear of being voted out of office.

10:47 a.m.: While were looking at omicron, we cant forget the delta variant, experts stress

While all eyes are on the new and little-understood omicron variant, the delta form of the coronavirus isnt finished wreaking havoc in the U. S., sending record numbers of patients to the hospital in some states, especially in the Midwest and New England.

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. recorded its first known omicron infection on Wednesday in a fully vaccinated person who had returned to California from South Africa, where the variant was identified just over a week ago.

For now, the extra-contagious delta variant accounts for practically all cases in the U.S. and continues to inflict misery at a time when many hospitals are struggling with shortages of nurses and a backlog of patients.

The fear now is that the latest variant will foist more patients and perhaps sicker ones into more hospital beds.

11:42 a.m.: Mysteries of the omicron variant could take weeks to untangle

Scientists say it could be weeks before they better understand how dangerous the omicron variant is.

According to the Associated Press, its still unknown whether the newest coronavirus variant of concern spreads faster than delta or makes people sicker.

According to the Associated Press, it also isnt clear how much protection is offered either by our vaccines or a persons immunity after recovering from another COVID-19 variant.

There are lots of guesses but little hard evidence as scientists race to find answers amid scrutiny from an anxious public. In the meantime, scientists urge people to get vaccinated and take other public health measures such as masking indoors.

11:35 a.m.: Supply chain woes hit toy-giving charities during the holiday season

As supply chain bottlenecks create shortages of many items, some charities are struggling to secure holiday gift wishes from kids in need, according to the Associated Press.

Theyre reporting they cant find enough items in stock or are facing shipping delays both in receiving and distributing the gifts.

The founder of One Simple Wish said many gift requests for gaming consoles and electronic items submitted to the charity have been out of stock. Another charity cant find enough doll styling heads, racially diverse Barbies and other things to give to kids in need.

One expert believes charities are also bound to see fewer toy donations directly from manufacturers this holiday season.

Find older coronavirus updates on our previous blog page here.

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California coronavirus updates: Convention business in downtown Sacramento has been down but will likely increase in early 2022 - Capital Public Radio...

Governor Ned Lamont confirmed that a fully vaccinated man marks Connecticut's first case of the Omicron Covid-19 variant.

State officials said the man, who is in his 60s, is from Hartford County. Sequencing performed at the Connecticut State Public Health Laboratory confirmed the presence of the variant.

Governor Ned Lamont confirmed that a fully vaccinated man marks Connecticut's first case of the Omicron Covid-19 variant.

The man developed mild symptoms on Nov. 27. An at-home Covid-19 test was positive two days later and a molecular test also came back positive on Dec. 1, according to Lamont.

The governor's office said a family member traveled to New York City between Nov. 17 and 22 to attend the Anime NYC 2021 convention held at the Javits Center. The family member developed symptoms and took an at-home test which came back positive on Nov. 23. Their symptoms have since been resolved, officials said.

Gov. Ned Lamont said because of vaccinations, there is less of a need for COVID-19 restrictions or mandates as cases climb in the state.

Both the man and family member that tested positive for the virus are fully vaccinated, according to the governor.

Other family members are undergoing coronavirus testing.

As Ive been saying for the last several days, given the speed that this new variant has been spreading around the world and its positive identification in several states, we presumed it was already in our state and the information we received from the lab today confirms that fact, Lamont said in a statement.

This likely is not the only case of the variant in the state. That being said, I must urge everyone in Connecticut not to panic. While we are still learning more about this variant, our health providers are continuing to do their best to protect everyone. We have life-saving tools like vaccines and boosters available to fight this pandemic including the Delta and Omicron variants and I urge everyone to take the necessary precautions to protect themselves and everyone around them," he continued.

As long as there are people unprotected from the coronavirus, we are going to see variants like the new Omicron strain of COVID-19, says NBC medical correspondent Dr. John Torres.

The state Department of Public Health is urging residents to get vaccinated if they haven't already. Booster shot clinics are also open throughout the state.

Given the number of states that have identified Omicron to date, it was only a matter of time before we identified it here in Connecticut as well. Although Omicron appears to be more infectious than the Delta variant, both affected individuals have had mild symptoms to date. It is reassuring as their immunity seems to be helping them fight off this infection," Connecticut Public Health Commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani said in a statement.

Originally posted here:

First Case of Omicron Covid-19 Variant Detected in Conn. is Fully Vaccinated Man - NBC Connecticut

Pererenan, Bali Before the pandemic, Dicky, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, earned up to $20 a day hawking shell craft jewellery to tourists on the crowded beaches of Balis southwest coast.

But nearly two months after Indonesia reopened its doors to visitors from China and 18 other countries, the international tourists Dicky once relied upon for sales are still few and far between.

I came here at eight in the morning and have been walking up and down the beach all day. I try, try and try but I have not sold a single piece all day, he told Al Jazeera as a blindingly beautiful blood-red sun set over the Indian Ocean at Pererenan Beach last weekend. I dont understand why more tourists arent coming now that Bali is open again.

Dicky is not the only person on the island perplexed about the fact that not a single international flight has landed in Bali since the international airport reopened on October 14. The islands COVID-19 metrics just about the lowest recorded since the start of the pandemic only add to the conundrum.

According to Indonesias National Board for Disaster Management, the seven-day average for new positive cases in Bali now stands at 11, the seven-day average for deaths is just one while the seven-day positivity rate for individuals tested is 0.17 percent well below WHOs minimum threshold of 1 percent for territories it classifies as having the virus under control. Vaccine numbers are also well above the world average of 42.7 percent, with more than 77 percent of all adults fully vaccinated in Bali, according to Indonesias Ministry of Health.

But six weeks after the country reopened, only 153 people around the world had applied for tourist visas, according to Indonesias Directorate General of Immigration.

The low level of interest reflects a survey by the International Air Transport Association that showed 84 percent of people have no interest in holidaying at destinations that require quarantine, and Indonesia imposes a mandatory hotel quarantine that was recently extended in response to the Omicron variant.

Even with a short quarantine, no one will come to Bali, said Udayana University Professor I Gusti Ngurah Mahardika, the islands most senior virologist.

Confusing, complex, constantly changing, and sometimes contradictory government messaging and immigration policy is also keeping international tourists away.

Thailand has reintroduced free visas-on-arrivals for tourists, but those who want to visit Indonesia must apply for visas at foreign embassies or consulates and need a travel agency to act as guarantor. And they must show proof of booked accommodation for the entire length of their stay in Indonesia a surefire way to quench the wanderlust of any intrepid traveller.

There is no clear statement from the government of what it is trying to achieve, a process for getting there, or simple guidelines for would-be tourists, wrote Bali-based statistician Jackie Pomeroy on her popular Bali Covid-19 Update Facebook page.

And in a blow to the domestic tourism sector that saw up to 20,000 Indonesians fly to the island daily in November, restrictions have been reintroduced for the period of December 24 to January 2.

Beach clubs, restaurants and nightclubs cannot host Christmas events or celebrate New Years Eve, while voices on social media fear all leisure travel in Indonesia will be banned during the peak holiday period.

A little less than a month ago, Professor Gusti advised Indonesia to drop quarantine altogether for fully vaccinated international travellers who test negative before departure and on arrival. But that was before the WHO identified Omicron as a variant of concern, tossing a radioactive wrench into the long-awaited reboot of the global travel industry.

On November 28, Indonesia, echoing measures by the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, banned non-resident arrivals from South Africa or any of eight other African countries. It also banned travellers from Hong Kong, which has reported its fourth case of the Omicron variant. Yet it did not ban travellers from the UK, where 246 cases of the variant had been reported as of Sunday the kind of knee-jerk policy UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described as travel apartheid.

Indonesia also extended quarantine for arrivals from all other countries from three to seven days. Less than a week later, it was extended again, this time to 10, the longest quarantine period Indonesia has seen since the start of the pandemic. The strict new rule forced Garuda, the countrys national air carrier, to axe its first planned international flight to Bali in 20 months from Haneda Airport in Japan on December 5. Subsequent weekly flights have also been removed from the airlines website.

The developments have put a dampener on Balis hopes of reviving tourism this year, which accounted for an estimated 60 percent of economic activity before the pandemic. The islands gross domestic product (GDP) shrunk by just less than three percent in the third quarter, having contracted nearly 10 percent in 2020.

Indonesias national GDP increased 3.5 percent in the same period, making Bali the hardest-hit Indonesian province by the pandemic from an economic perspective for two years in a row.

The global tourism monster that once fed Bali will probably not rebound to 2019 levels until 2024, according to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company that made the prediction in June based on various scenarios that examined the effect of virus containment.

Observers in Bali feel the same way.

History has shown that Bali is very resilient to disaster but the island will take another year or two to recover, said Mark Ching, a director of the Tamora Group, a prominent property developer on the island. Its not just opening borders. People need to feel safe before they travel again.

Excerpt from:

Six weeks after reopening, Bali wonders where the tourists are - Aljazeera.com

The omicron variant is raising global concern.

Theomicron variantof COVID-19 has now been confirmed in at least 16 US states and is "likely to rise," Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Sunday on This Week. Although the delta variant of COVID makes up 99.9% of US cases, Walensky said, omicron is spreading quickly. A leading European health agency predicts omicron could become the dominant COVID strain in months (more below.)

There have been more than 5.2 million reported deathsworldwide due to COVID-19.

In the US, President Joe Biden is doubling down on urging vaccines and booster shots until more information becomes available. Experts caution it could be two or three weeks before we know exactly how contagious omicron is and if it can cause more severe illness than other mutations of the virus.

So far, the COVID-19 vaccines have proved to be highly effective in preventing hospitalization and death, with people who are unvaccinated being more than10 times more likely to be hospitalized if infected. Vaccine-makers are optimistic the current vaccines authorized for use in the US will provide a degree of protection against omicron, too.

Here are eight important things to know about omicron today. For more on COVID boosters, here's a trick to easily get an appointment and free ride. Here's how you'll soon get a COVID test kit for free and details on mixing and matching vaccines.

Now playing: Watch this: What to do if you lose your vaccination card, and how...

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Omicron could become the most common COVID variant in months, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

"Mathematical modelling [sic] indicates that the Omicron VOC is expected to cause over half of all SARS-CoV-2 infections in the EU/EEA within the next few months" due to early understandings of the omicron variant's high transmissibility between people, the center said in aDec. 2 brief.

Scientists studying the omicron variant in South Africa, where it was first reported to the World Health Organization, have said it's spreadingmore than twice as fast as the delta variant. But what isn't yet known is the spread is hastened because the mutations make it easier to spread among people, if vaccines are less effective against this strain or for some other reason. Thestudy cited by the New York Times has not yet been published or peer-reviewed.

First, it was Minnesota, then California and now Hawaii, New York and points in between. The US and other countries were already bracing for an increased caseload as colder weather and holiday revelry drove more people indoors together. Now, concerns over a winter surge of the dominant delta variant join concerns about omicron's spread.

COVID latches onto cells using a spike protein in its structure. Omicron has more mutations than the delta variant, which is considered at least twice as contagious as previous strains. While it isn't clear yet if omicron is more or less contagious than delta, the presence of those mutations is one cause of concern.

That may be one reason countries around the world have banned travel from some countries in southern Africa and increased travel restrictions that include a negative COVID test 24 hours before travel, regardless of vaccination status.

Scientists are testing whether omicron could cause breakthrough infections in people who are fully vaccinated and reinfections for those who have antibodies from a prior COVID-19 infection. It may take two to three weeks before enough test data reveals how effective the Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are in protecting against the omicron mutation. Scientists are hopeful, however, that the current vaccines will continue to protect against the new variant.

"We think it's likely that people will have substantial protection against severe disease caused by omicron," said Ugur Sahin, co-founder of BioNTech,said uring an interview with Reuters on Tuesday.BioNTech worked with Pfizerto create one of the vaccines authorized in the US.

Still, the fact that omicron has rapidly mutated and spread has rung at least one alarm bell.

"The emergence of the highly mutated omicron variant underlines just how perilous and precarious our situation is," Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, leader of the World Health Organization,said on Nov. 29.

Most PCR tests to identify the presence of COVID-19 in the body are free (COVID tests for international travel are the main exception). So it's good news that the existing nasal swab test has been found to detect the omicron variant -- a blood test or other procedure so far is unnecessary.

"Fortunately for us, the PCRs that we mostly use would pick up this very unusual variant that has a real large constellation of mutations," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president's chief medical advisor, said in a Nov. 29 press briefing.

Drugmakers are exploring if the current vaccines are effective against the new variant.

Most PCR tests to identify the presence of COVID-19 in the body are free (COVID tests for international travel are the main exception). So it's good news that the existing nasal swab test has been found to detect the omicron variant -- a blood test or other procedure so far is unnecessary.

"Fortunately for us, the PCRs that we mostly use would pick up this very unusual variant that has a real large constellation of mutations," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president's chief medical advisor, said Nov. 29 in apress briefing.

Moderna: Moderna's Chief Medical Officer Paul Burtontold the BBChis company has hundreds of people examining the effectiveness of its current vaccine and booster with the variant. Moderna is also testing a COVID-19 vaccine that could protect against several mutated strains of the coronavirus looking at an omicron-specific booster vaccine. Burton said if Moderna needs to make a new vaccine modified for the variant, it could be available early in 2022.

Pfizer: A Pfizer spokesperson said the company is "constantly conducting surveillance efforts focused on monitoring for emerging variants that potentially escape protection from our vaccine."

The spokesperson said Pfizer could develop and produce a tailor-made vaccine against that variant in approximately 100 days.

Johnson & Johnson: Johnson & Johnsonsaidit's working with scientists in South Africa and around the world to evaluate the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine against the omicron variant and has begun work on a new vaccine designed for omicron, if needed.

On Thursday, Biden announced a plan to help protect the US against the omicron variant this winter. It includes, among other things:

The World Health Organization assigns Greek letters to key COVID variants to help the public easily remember and pronounce the different mutations of the virus. When first announced, search interest in the Greek letters "omicron" and "omega" climbed as people looked for information on the new variant. So far we've heard the new omicron variant pronounced by global health leaders asOH-me-cron, OH-mih-cronandOH-my-cron(some of this boils down toancient Greek).

For additional COVID guidance, here's what to know about new travel restrictions, how to store your vaccine card on your phone and what to do if you lose your vaccine card.

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

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Omicron FAQ: 8 key things to know about the new COVID variant today - CNET