The latest on the Omicron coronavirus variant

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, testifies during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on Thursday, November 4.

The new Omicron variant could eventually become the dominant strain and scientists are still trying to understand how it behaves — but the biggest concern right now is the dominant Delta variant, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, said Friday.

Walensky said Omicron could become the dominant strain in the country, but that is not clear yet. She said the country has stepped up its sequencing work to try and learn more about the new variant. There are five states reporting cases so far. 

“What we do know is that early data, and even mutation data are telling us that this may well be a more transmissible variant than Delta. And so … this is gonna take some time to sort out,” Walensky said.

One case in Minnesota was in a resident who had had a Covid-19 booster. Walensky said they are still trying to understand more about the case. 

“It is helpful to understand that this person had mild symptoms that have, to my understanding, resolved pretty swiftly,” Walensky said. “So it this may very well be actually a story of vaccines success, and not necessarily one of vaccine failure.” 

The more mutations you have with a variant the more you want to bolster immunity, Walensky said. 

“If you have previously had infection, you will definitely be more protected if you also get a vaccine, and that’s really the goal here, is to try to provide the most amount of protection as possible so people will be protected against severe disease and ideally against infection altogether,” Walensky said.

A medical worker seals a test tube with a Covid-19 nasal swab at San Francisco International Airport on Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021.

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said as health officials are learning more about the Omicron coronavirus variant, it “may be a more transmissible variant than Delta,” but further research and time is required to reveal specific details.

Delta still accounts for “the vast majority” of Covid-19 cases in the United States, she said.

Even if a person has been infected with Covid-19 in the past, Walensky encouraged them to get vaccines and get a booster shot.

President Biden yesterday announced new steps to combat Covid-19 in the winter — including changing testing rules for international travelers and requiring insurance companies to pay for at-home tests — and Walensky said officials are scaling up rapid testing in US international airports.

“The whole point is to have accessible, affordable tests for when you need or want one, and that is exactly what all of the scale-up has been about,” she said.

The first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant was detected in Mexico on Friday, according to Mexican Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell.

“The diagnosis for the recovery is favorable. Since November 26, we established a virological surveillance protocol that identifies early cases of Covid-19 in people arriving from any country,” he said.

According to a statement from the health ministry, the person arrived in Mexico on Nov. 21, and six days later, presented symptoms characteristic of mild Covid-19.

The health minister also wrote in a tweet that closing borders and blocking people or goods “are not useful measures to contain the variants.”

He added the World Health Organization refers that vaccination continues to be essential to reduce the risks of hospitalization and death.

“We call to keep calm and continue to apply measures to avoid contagion: safe distance, use of face masks, cover your sneeze, and frequent hand washing,” López-Gatell also wrote. 

Early Friday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said it was very likely that this new variant will appear in the country, noting that “it is known that there are affected in Canada, the United States and elsewhere.”

According to health authorities in Mexico, the circulation of variants of concern have been detected, such as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron.

Passengers wait to board flights, amidst the spread of the new SARS-CoV-2 variant, at O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, November 27, 2021. 

The White House continued to defend its recent travel restrictions imposed on eight African countries due to concerns over the Omicron variant, despite the fact that the variant has now been detected across the world, including multiple cases in the United States. 

The restrictions on the African countries, which went into effect earlier this week, were described by UN Secretary-General António Guterres as “travel apartheid” Thursday. 

He continued, “We’ll continue to rely on their expertise regarding how we make sure that we keep the American people safe, and that will directly impact the duration of these travel restrictions.”

The topic has come up at multiple White House press briefings this week. Earlier Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said President Biden would continue to follow the advice of medical experts still learning more about the Omicron variant. 

On Wednesday, she said the travel restrictions were “not a political decision” but were “intended to give us more time to do the necessary evaluation, data and testing required.”

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that he hopes the restrictions are “sorted out and lifted” quickly. 

“That’s a very good question, an important question, and we did struggle with that. But we wanted to see if we could buy time temporarily so I do hope that this gets sorted out and lifted before it has any significant impact on the country,” said Fauci, chief medical adviser to the President.

US President Joe Biden speaks about the November Jobs Report from the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on December 3rd, 2021. 

President Biden reiterated that travel measures announced yesterday are “sufficient” to address the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant. Multiple cases of the new variant have been identified in the US.

“I continue to rely on scientists and asking them whether or not we have to move beyond what we did yesterday. Right now, they’re saying no,” Biden told reporters after speaking about November’s jobs report.

The new rules, which start on Monday, will require each traveler flying into the US from another country to test negative for Covid-19 one day before their departure.

Biden said he has previously suggested the suspension of vaccine patents for easier access. He said South Africa is not requesting any more vaccines at this time.

When asked about his hoarse voice while speaking, the President said he has a cold due to a “1 1/2-year-old grandson who had a cold who likes to kiss his pop.” He said he gets tested for Covid-19 every day.

Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, tours Levitt Pavilion Steelstacks while visiting area businesses with Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., to discuss the American Jobs Plan in Bethlehem, Pa., on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2021. 

Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said he would not “sugarcoat” a lower-than-expected November jobs report, citing the “new normal” of the US economy in the continued aftermath of pandemic disruption. 

“I’ve certainly learned to unfortunately not follow the forecast… Every time, it’s pretty much been the forecast has been higher than the number, and a couple times, the other way around. We have to look at this as a whole plan: Since President Biden has taken office, the economy is getting stronger and stronger every day. We’re seeing nearly 6 million people returning to the workforce. We’re seeing a full two points drop off the unemployment number,” Walsh said to CNN’s Jim Sciutto. 

At least 210,000 jobs were added to the US economy last month, far lower than economists’ predictions.

On vaccine mandates, he said the administration is waiting for courts to resolve challenges to vaccine requirements.

“At the end of the day, we want to make sure we keep people safe and healthy and allow people to go back to work and come back to their workplace and feeling safe – that’s the intention behind it,” he said.  

A woman puts Covax stickers as workers unload a shipment of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine from a plane at Felix Houphouet Boigny airport of Abidjan on February 26, 2021. - Ivory Coast has received 504.000 doses of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine on February 26. Covax is a global scheme to procure and distribute inoculations for free, as the world races to contain the pandemic.

There is a “clear relationship” between vaccine inequity and the development of new coronavirus variants, said Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist.

“Absolutely,” she said at the ReutersNEXT global conference on Friday, when asked if it was fair to say that if Africa had received and administered more vaccines, then perhaps Omicron would not be here. “I think this is a message that we’ve been — [Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus], the [WHO] director-general — has from the beginning, insisting, and it wasn’t because the equity was only for ethical reasons, it was for exactly these scientific and epidemiological reasons.” 

She said that when the virus is just transmitting and going from person to person, there would ultimately be new variants – and this will keep happening.

“There’s a clear relationship between inequity in access to vaccines and the development of variants,” she said. 

Swaminathan also said that it’s possible that modified versions of Covid-19 vaccines will be needed for Omicron, but too early to know now. Studies that could answer this question will take another week or two.

World Health Organization Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said on Friday that it’s too early to conclude whether the Omicron coronavirus variant leads to milder illnesses overall.

Speaking at the Reuters NEXT Global Conference, Swaminathan said that it’s very early and it has only been one week since Omicron was classified a variant of concern by the WHO and just a couple of weeks since it was first observed in South Africa.

“But, it’s too early for us to conclude that this is a mild version,” she added.

Swaminathan cautioned that everything she was speaking about now would be different when more is known about the variant. 

“There’s always a lag between infection progressing to severe disease,” she said, adding that surges in hospitalizations and deaths come two weeks after surges of cases. 

“I think we need to wait; let’s hope it’s milder, especially in those who are vaccinated or who have some previous natural immunity, but it’s too early to conclude about the variant and its behavior as a whole,” she said. 

World Health Organization's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan looks on during an interview with AFP in Geneva on May 8th, 2021.

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist, said on Friday that although it’s early, the Omicron variant appears to be very transmissible. 

“From the early reports that we have, starting with the Gauteng province where it was first observed, and then across the different provinces of South Africa, we do think it is quite infectious, quite transmissible, because South Africa has been reporting a very rapid increase in the number of cases. In fact, they’ve been doubling every day, and that suggests that this virus is highly transmissible,” Swaminathan said at the Reuters NEXT Global Conference.

Swaminathan also pointed out that “huge thanks” are owed to South Africa’s scientific and medical community, who have been updating and working nonstop to provide as much information as possible.

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks while visiting the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S., on Thursday, December 2nd, 2021.

The Biden administration is shipping 11 million vaccines doses abroad today with 9 million going to Africa and another 2 million to other countries around the world, White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients will announce in today’s Covid-19 response team briefing, according to remarks obtained by CNN.

It follows President Biden’s announcement Thursday that the administration will send more than 200 million doses abroad in 100 days, accelerating delivery to high-risk countries. Today’s shipment brings the total number of doses sent to Africa to 100 million.

The Biden administration also will push international partners to take a stronger role in aiding in global vaccine efforts.

“From supporting communications campaigns to build vaccine confidence, to funding for vaccinators on the front line — we are leading the global vaccination effort. And we are calling on the rest of the world to step up and join us,” Zients will say. 

Today’s move comes as the Biden administration has faced criticism over recent travel restrictions imposed on eight African countries amid concerns over the Omicron variant. Several of the countries under the travel ban have not had a confirmed Omicron case yet. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has likened the widespread travel bans to “travel apartheid.”

Zients also will highlight the Biden administration’s progress in global vaccination efforts so far – noting a commitment of 1.2 billion doses worldwide and 280 million doses already donated and shipped to 110 countries, a figure the administration says exceeds the number of doses donated and shipped by all other countries combined.

The 11 million doses shipped today also exceed the donations of all but five other countries throughout the pandemic, according to the administration.

Dr Rochelle Walensky speaks to ABC’s Good Morning America Friday on 3rd December 2021

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on ABC’s Good Morning America Friday that the US is pushing to scale up testing for the coronavirus. 

Testing is also being scaled up in airports, she said, with tests being ramped up in major international airports including Atlanta, Newark, San Francisco, New York City and Los Angeles. 

She also added that there are 10,000 sites that offer free PCR tests across the country. 

“We’re doing a lot to scale up testing,” she said. “And we’re really asking people to come forward when they have symptoms to get a test.” 

Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, July 20th, 2021. 

The United States can’t lose sight of the fact that Delta is still the dominant variant in the country — but for all variants, it’s better to be vaccinated than unvaccinated, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday.

“Let’s just back up for one second and comment on the fact that today we have 90,000 new cases of Covid-19 every day, and that about 99.9% of them continue to be Delta,” Walensky said when asked if it could be concluded yet that Omicron may be less severe than Delta.

Walensky said that the country has better tools now and is in a much better place to tackle new variants.

“So, we still have a lot of science to do to understand how these vaccines are working against Omicron, except to say that we know for every variant that we’ve had, it’s better to be vaccinated than unvaccinated.”

Seventeen Omicron cases are suspected among an outbreak of Covid-19 following a company Christmas party in Oslo, Norway, a health official told CNN Friday.

Around 125 people attended the party, over 60 of whom have tested positive for Covid-19, with one confirmed Omicron case so far, the head of communications at the Oslo health department, Caroline Bremer, told CNN.

“We are expecting more cases and we are just doing the work that we can to confirm and trace,” she said.

The event was attended by people from “several surrounding municipalities” as well as Oslo, and health officials are coordinating contact tracing, according to a statement issued by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health on Thursday. 

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tightened travel requirements on Thursday, posting an amended order changing the Covid-19 testing requirement to one day before air travel into the US.

Tests approved or authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration are acceptable for use, the order says. People who can show they have recovered from infection within the past 90 days are exempt.

A COVID-19 test center operates inside the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on December 01, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. The Biden administration is planning to announce tighter restrictions for travelers flying into the United States, including requiring a negative test for COVID-19 one day ahead of travel, in response to the new Omicron variant. 

“At this time, it is unknown what level of protection current vaccines will provide against this newly emergent mutated variant. To best protect the health of the United States, unless and until CDC can confirm that current approved and authorized vaccines provide adequate protection against the Omicron variant, all passengers – including those who are fully vaccinated, but excluding passengers who present a valid Documentation of Recovery – must obtain a viral test on a specimen collected no more than 1 calendar day before their flight’s departure to meet the requirements of this Amended Order,” it reads.

“The one-day time window, a reduction from the previous 3-day window for fully vaccinated passengers, will provide less opportunity to develop infection with the Omicron variant prior to arrival into the United States.”

The order takes effect December 6.

Facebook has sold ads promoting anti-vaccine messages, comparing the US government’s response to Covid-19 to Nazi Germany, casting doubt on the result of the 2020 election, and even pushing political violence.

The ads have been run by merchandise companies that have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Facebook over the last few years.

On Monday, Fox News personality Lara Logan caused outrage by comparing Dr. Anthony Fauci to a notorious Nazi doctor known as the “Angel of Death” – around the same time ads were running on Facebook promoting a sweater emblazed with the words, “I’m originally from America but I currently reside in 1941 Germany.”

Another ad compared the rollout of vaccines to the Holocaust – falsely and ludicrously implying they are part of an attempt to slaughter people on a mass scale.

The ad was run by a Facebook page named “Ride the Red Wave.” Earlier this year the page ran ads for a t-shirt with the words, “Make hanging traitors great again.”

Facebook has made more than $280,000 from ads run by “Ride the Red Wave” since May, according to data reviewed by CNN. The page has fewer than 10,000 followers, but by paying Facebook the people running the page can potentially reach millions of Americans.

Read the full story here:

Related article Facebook sold ads comparing vaccine to Holocaust

Swiss health authorities have placed 2,000 people under quarantine for ten days after two cases of the Omicron variant were detected at the International School of Geneva. 

“All those involved must also take a PCR test,” Geneva health authorities said in a statement on Thursday. “Parents and siblings of the students concerned must also take a screening test in order to detect the possible presence of the Omicron variant as soon as possible. This is the first measure of this magnitude.” 

The Genevan health department said the two cases of Omicron are linked to a family with a member that had returned from a trip to South Africa.  

“Only a few rare, imported cases have been identified in Switzerland so far,” the health department statement continued. They, therefore, decided on “strong measures” as a precaution. 

“It is essential to slow down the introduction of the variant in our territory. When identified, it is also essential to minimize transmission in Switzerland,” they said. 

Geneva is home to the World Health Organization (WHO), which last week classified Omicron as a variant of concern.

Jens Spahn (CDU), Executive Federal Minister for Health, gives a press conference on the development in the Corona pandemic at the Federal Press Conference on 3rd December 2021 in Berlin, Germany.

Intensive care units (ICUs) in Germany will “reach a new peak around Christmas,” outgoing Health Minister Jens Spahn said at a press conference in Berlin on Friday as the country grapples with a spiraling wave of infections linked to unvaccinated people.

There are currently 4,800 people with Covid-19 in intensive care, Spahn said, adding that more severely ill patients are expected to be treated at ICUs, over the next few weeks.  

Spahn also said Germany has enough vaccine to reach its goal of administering 30 million booster shots by Christmas. Around 10 million of the 55 million vaccinated adults in Germany have received a booster shot, he said.

“We don’t have a day to lose,” the head of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Lothar Wieler, said alongside Spahn, warning that there will be a rise in coronavirus-related deaths in the next few weeks. “We must bring down the caseload of daily new infections as well as the incidence rate to break Germany’s fourth wave.” 

Wieler also explained that some areas were struggling to report real-time Covid-19 data because they were overwhelmed by the high number of cases. Testing centers and federal health authorities in hotspot areas were unable to submit data on time, potentially affecting Germany’s overall daily Covid-19 numbers, Wieler said. 

Nine cases of the Omicron variant were reported in five different regions of France, including its overseas territories, French Health Minister Olivier Veran told French radio network FranceInfo on Friday. 

“For the moment, there is no alarm,” he said, “We need a few more days to better understand the virus.”

France reported its first Omicron case on Sunday in the overseas territory of Reunion. The first mainland case was reported on Wednesday – a man who returned from a trip to Nigeria in November.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced Thursday that a meeting would be held Monday of the National Health Council to “see if it’s necessary to take additional measures” to combat the “worrying” fifth wave of the outbreak.

Australian health authorities are investigating an outbreak of Covid-19, including three confirmed cases of the new Omicron variant, at a school in western Sydney, New South Wales (NSW) health authorities said in a statement Friday. 

The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases linked to the Regents Park Christian School cluster currently stands at 13 – of which three have been identified as the new Omicron variant after genomic sequencing.

At least one of those who tested positive for the Omicron variant appeared to have caught it in NSW as they did not have any travel history, officials said.

“NSW Health is urgently investigating the source of infection for this cluster,” the statement said. 

All students grades K-12 have been dismissed for the year. In addition, all students and staff of the school have been identified as close contacts and ordered to get tested and self-isolate according to the state’s health guidelines. 

Omicron cases rise

Two more cases of the Omicron variant were also identified by NSW Health in returned travelers on flight QR908 from Doha to Sydney on November 23, bringing the total number of confirmed cases of the variant in the state to 13. The two identified were family members of a case confirmed Thursday, the statement said. 

On Friday, Australia’s Capital Territory (ACT), where the capital Canberra is located, also confirmed its first Omicron variant case, CNN affiliate Nine News reported. The infected, who was fully vaccinated, tested positive on December 1. 

These cases are in addition to the one case reported on Monday in Australia’s Northern Territory, as reported earlier. 

After South African officials sounded the alarm of the new variant last week, Australia banned foreigners who have traveled to nine southern African countries from entering the country.

Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert-Koch-Institute (German national agency and research institute for disease control and prevention), attends a press conference on December 3rd, 2021 in Berlin, to comment on the current situation amid the novel coronavirus / Covid-19 pandemic.

German health officials on Friday reported two further cases of the Omicron variant in the country, bringing the total to 11 cases detected so far.

The cases were identified among travelers returning from South Africa to the German capital Berlin, the Senate announced on Twitter. The Senate said that there were at least one or two other suspected cases waiting to be confirmed.

This comes a day after a nationwide lockdown for the unvaccinated was announced amid spiraling coronavirus infections. The country’s leaders have also backed plans for mandatory vaccinations in the coming months.

On Friday, Germany recorded 74,352 new cases within the last 24 hours – its third-highest caseload in the pandemic, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Germany’s disease and control center. 

The country reported 390 coronavirus-related deaths from Thursday to Friday, pushing overall death figures to 102,000 people.