The latest on the Omicron coronavirus variant

There are still some key unanswered questions about the Omicron coronavirus variant, but emerging evidence appears to hold clues to the virus’ transmissibility and severity, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a virtual White House briefing Tuesday.

“If one looks at the transmissibility, we have molecular evidence to suggest that the mutations that are seen in Omicron and in other variants would suggest that they are associated with increased infectivity. Real-world evidence is accumulating rapidly – literally on a daily basis – to allow us to determine increase in cases, possible increase in reproductive number and the rapid replacement of Delta by Omicron in certain situations,” Fauci said, referring to data from South Africa.

The world can expect to learn more about the Omicron variant in the next couple of weeks, Fauci told CNN’s Betsy Klein during the briefing.

“Most of the data on the severity will likely come first from South Africa, because of the volume of cases that they have. Given severity, hospitalization and death are always lagging indicators, I would imagine it will take at least another couple of weeks before we have a good handle and then a really good handle a few weeks thereafter,” Fauci said. “So, I would say we shouldn’t be making any definitive conclusions, certainly not before the next couple of weeks.”

French Health Minister Olivier Veran gives a press conference on the current situation amid the Covid-19 pandemic at the Hotel de Matignon in Paris, on December 6.

France has seen one of its highest ever daily totals of new Covid-19 cases, figures from the national health agency show. 

The country recorded 59,019 new cases Tuesday, topping off a week of mounting cases as France battles the fifth wave of the coronavirus, according to figures from Public Health France.

French Health ministry data shows an ongoing gradual increase in Intensive Care Unit hospitalizations due to Covid-19.

The French prime minister and health minister announced limited new restrictions Monday, including a four-week-long closure of nightclubs and a mandate on masks in primary schools.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moved France to its list of “very high” risk travel destinations on Monday.

In Michigan, more people are hospitalized with Covid-19 now than at any other point during the pandemic, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services. 

There are currently 4,638 Covid-19 patients in Michigan hospitals, about a quarter of whom are in an intensive care unit, HHS data shows.

Covid-19 hospitalizations haven’t been this high in Michigan for about a year, since the end of November 2020. But recent hospitalizations first surpassed last year’s record about a week ago and have continued to rise since. 

Covid-19 case rates in Michigan also reached a record high last week, and the per capita case rate remains higher than in any other state, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The state reported 602 new cases per 100,000 people over the past week, nearly three times the US rate of 220 cases per 100,000 people. 

The Midwest remains a Covid-19 hotspot, and Minnesota is not far behind Michigan in terms of new cases per capita, according to JHU data. Hospitalizations in Minnesota are just 13% below the peak from a year ago, according to HHS data. 

Covid-19 hospitalizations in Maine are also at record highs, with the latest surge far surpassing earlier waves. 

Jeff Zients, President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to head the White House’s coronavirus response, speaks during a news conference at the Queen Theater December 08, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. 

The White House continued to defend ongoing travel restrictions imposed on eight African countries due to concerns over the Omicron variant, which has now been detected across the globe and in the US. 

White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients acknowledged “difficulty” imposed by the restrictions, particularly during the holiday travel season, calling it a “reasonable measure” that was being evaluated daily.

The restrictions, which went into effect last week, have been described by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as “travel apartheid.”

The restrictions, Zients said in response to a question from CNN, “were taken out of an abundance of caution to help slow the spread and give us the time to prepare and… evaluate the Omicron variant.”

“We are continuing to see, as Dr. Fauci presented, thousands of cases every day in southern Africa,” Zients added. “There are lots of unknowns about the transmissibility, the severity, the vaccine impact of Omicron, and we will learn more about the variant as Dr. Fauci just described, as [US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director] Dr. Walensky described, over the coming days and weeks.” 

“I would say we shouldn’t be making any definitive conclusions, certainly not before the next couple of weeks,” Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said of Omicron severity. 

Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, November 4th, 2021.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has joined investigations into the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant at the recent Anime NYC 2021 convention, assisting with contact tracing among the tens of thousands of convention attendees, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a virtual White House briefing Tuesday.

The Minnesota Department of Health announced last week that it had identified the nation’s second Covid-19 case caused by the Omicron variant in a resident who recently traveled to New York City and attended the Anime NYC 2021 convention from Nov. 19-21.

“CDC is assisting both the Minnesota and New York City Health Departments with the investigation among attendees at a recent Anime New York City Convention and has now contacted all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, and 27 other countries with residents who attended to inform them of this ongoing investigation,” Walensky said Tuesday. “Of the reported 53,000 people who attended that conference, more than 35,000 and counting have been contacted to encourage testing for all attendees.”

Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing to discuss vaccines and protecting public health during the coronavirus pandemic on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020, in Washington.

National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said the US is not in a “good place” right now, encouraging Americans to get Covid-19 vaccines and booster shots.

Collins said we are still in a “public health emergency.” While he said he would rather there not be vaccine mandates like the one recently announced in New York City, they may be necessary to curb the virus.

“We know these vaccines are safe and effective. If we have a chance to drive this Delta variant away by getting more of our population immunized, then that’s what we have to do. I wish we didn’t have to use mandates, but if that’s what it takes, then maybe that’s what it takes,” Collins said.

The NIH has been trying to ramp up the number of types of at-home Covid tests, he said, and there is a pilot program to order a test on Amazon for next-day delivery.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla talks during a press conference with European Commission President after a visit to oversee the production of the Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine at the factory of US pharmaceutical company Pfizer, in Puurs, on April 23rd, 2021.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said on Tuesday that if a new vaccine is needed for the Omicron coronavirus variant, the company will have one in March, and the company is confident its investigational antiviral pill will be effective against the variant. 

It still needs to be seen if the current vaccine provides an umbrella of protection that is solid enough, he said, adding that it is preferable and less complicated to keep the same vaccine. 

Asked about Paxlovid, Pfizer’s oral antiviral treatment, Bourla said “we have very, very high level of confidence that will fight this variant and all the ones that we have seen so far.” 

Most mutations happen in the spike protein and the antiviral, which is a protease inhibitor, does not work in the spike protein, he said. 

“We know that those mutations, they don’t affect that at all,” he said. “So, we have very, very high level of confidence with the current variants, the treatment that we have should work at the same level.” 

The United States has shipped more than 300 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine across the globe as of Tuesday morning.

There are expected to be around 302 million doses shipped by the Covid-19 response team’s briefing at 12:30 p.m. ET.

That is more vaccine doses shipped abroad than all countries combined, according to a White House official. 

Since President Biden announced administration efforts to boost vaccine manufacturing to increase the global supply in November, the official said, 19 million doses have shipped.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks to healthcare workers and military personnel on April 5, 2020 in New York City. The Convention Center has been converted into a temporary field hospital by the US Army Corps of Engineers in order to ease the pressure on New York's overwhelmed hospitals by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday morning that the vaccine mandate he announced for private sector employees is a “preemptive strike” against the possibility of potential future lockdowns due to Covid-19.

The mayor said city officials talked to business leaders “for months” about the Delta variant and said business owners wanted to avoid having to go back to a shutdown. While the mayor did not say exactly who will enforce the mandate, de Blasio reiterated that the city health department plans to work with the business sector to come out with specific protocols for the mandate by Dec. 15.

Regarding tourists coming to New York City, de Blasio said the city is happy to provide vaccinations to anyone traveling to New York City who does not meet the city’s vaccine requirements for restaurants and other indoor establishments. 

De Blasio also said he has had “great conversations” with Mayor-elect Eric Adams and believes that he will listen to health officials about the need for vaccine mandates when he assumes office.

“What he [Adams] always says is he’s going to listen to the health leadership. Our health leadership said it is time for this,” de Blasio said.  

A senior World Health Organization (WHO) official warned that travel bans were not effective in terms of preventing the spread of coronavirus. 

Dr. Catherine Smallwood, senior emergencies manager and Covid-19 incident manager, told a virtual WHO Europe news conference that 43 of the 53 countries in the agency’s Europe region have imposed travel measures in response to the Omicron variant.

Smallwood said that while travel bans are “certainly something that countries are within their rights to do,” evidence shows they are not effective.

“Disease outbreaks are contained at their source, not at their borders, and travel bans, though they may be easily accessible in terms of political decision making are not effective in terms of preventing the spread of disease.”

She added:

Uganda has become the first country in East Africa to detect the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, the country’s Ministry of Health announced in a tweet Tuesday. 

The ministry said seven cases of the variant were confirmed in the country.

“[Five] of these arrived from Nigeria while [two] arrived from South Africa,” it added.

The cases were confirmed by the genomic surveillance conducted at the various points of entry into the country, as well as among the general population, the ministry said.

As more countries consider making coronavirus vaccination mandatory, the World Health Organization (WHO) cautioned that inoculation mandates should be seen as “an absolute last resort.”

Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, said mandates should be considered only “when all other feasible options to improve vaccination uptake have been exhausted.” 

Speaking at a Tuesday news conference, Kluge said:

Kluge said mandates should never contribute to increasing social inequalities in access to health and social services, and stressed that there are important regional differences to be considered. “What is acceptable in one society and community may not be effective and acceptable in another,” he said. 

Separately, Kluge also urged governments to do more to protect children and schools from the virus.

He said that while case rates have increased across all age groups, the highest rates currently observed are in 5- to 14-year-olds. 

“The health risks extend beyond the children themselves. As school holidays approach, we must also acknowledge that children contaminate their parents, grandparents at home with a 10 times increased risk for these adults to develop severe disease,” he said.

An employee works on a production line at a GlaxoSmithKline factory in northern France, where adjuvant -- or the immune system booster -- for Covid-19 vaccines is manufactured.

Medicago – a company that has used a close relative of the tobacco plant to make vaccines – said a Phase 3 trial of its Covid-19 vaccine showed it has 75% efficacy against symptoms of any severity caused by the Delta variant of the virus.

The company said no serious adverse events were seen in its trial in 24,000 volunteers in Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.

It said it would apply for regulatory approval with Canadian authorities and start the processes for US and European authorization.

The company said the overall vaccine efficacy rate against all variants of the virus was 71%, adding:

Reactions to the vaccine were generally mild and transient, the company said. It said it would publish the findings in a peer-reviewed journal.

The company uses a close relative of the tobacco plant, called Nicotiana benthamiana, to produce what are known as virus-like particles. These are non-infectious facsimiles of the virus, designed to prime the immune system to recognize a real virus if it infects someone.

The vaccine uses an adjuvant – an immune system booster – made by GlaxoSmithKline.

“If approved, we will be contributing to the world’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic with the world’s first plant-based vaccine for use in humans,” Takashi Nagao, CEO and president of Medicago, said in a statement. Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation is the parent company of Medicago.

Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, attends a news conference in Turkey in July 2020.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday it is not clear yet whether the Omicron coronavirus variant is more transmissible or causes more or less severe illness. 

“It is yet to be seen how and whether the latest COVID-19 variant of concern Omicron will be more transmissible or more or less severe,“ WHO’s Regional Director for Europe Dr. Hans Kluge said at a news conference.

There have been some positive signs coming from South Africa, where the Omicron variant accounts for the majority of new coronavirus infections. Doctors there have reported that cases caused by the variant are generally mild, although they cautioned these are early days.

During the briefing, which focused on Europe and Central Asia, Kluge said that while the Omicron variant is “in sight and on the rise,” it is the Delta variant that is the problem in the region right now.

“However we succeed against Delta today is a win over Omicron tomorrow before it eventually surges,” Kluge said, adding: “We are in the business of stabilizing a pandemic and that means not one variant at a time, but all variants at once.”

A volunteer registers personal information for a resident before testing in the border city of Manzhouli in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on December 6.

Officials in the Inner Mongolian city of Manzhouli have launched a campaign to track those who failed to join the city-wide mass testing, vowing to “test everyone who should be tested” and “quarantine everyone who should be quarantined,” the municipal government said on Tuesday.

The campaign was announced days after two Chinese officials were dismissed and four reprimanded over the weekend for “poor performance of duty” and “slack response” over the Covid-19 outbreak in Manzhouli. 

The Inner Mongolia’s border city has conducted daily city-wide mass testing drives in the past 10 days for its 300,000 residents since the outbreak started on November 27. The latest round started on Tuesday morning, according to the municipal government.

Overall, China reported 60 locally-transmitted cases of coronavirus on Monday, of which 55 were reported in northern China’s Manzhouli Municipal Government.

Two cases were reported in northeastern Heilongjiang province, two cases in southwestern Yunnan province and one case in the southeastern Zhejiang province, according to the country’s National Health Commission.

The total number of the cases linked to the outbreak in Inner Mongolia’s border city of Manzhouli stands at 377, according to a CNN tally.

Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, member of the African Task Force for Coronavirus.

Scientists are emphasizing that it is still too early to make any firm conclusions on the severity of the Omicron coronavirus variant, and health experts are encouraging people to get vaccinated against Covid-19, as well as taking other precautions.

Yet – while the new variant appears to spread very quickly – there is some heartening evidence in the early data from South Africa, which suggests that Covid-19 cases caused by Omicron might be relatively mild.

Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, an epidemiologist and member of the African Task Force for Coronavirus, told CNN on Monday that doctors treating patients with Omicron have reported seeing infections that were generally mild. 

“One has to be very careful in overinterpreting that because it’s still very early days in that severe cases, you know, usually take longer, they occur in weeks two, three and four,” he added.

Meanwhile, Omicron is still spreading worldwide, and many countries continue to battle the Delta variant. This includes the United States, which is reporting 120,000 new daily Covid-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid updating MPs on the UK government's coronavirus plans on Monday December 6.

England has detected community transmission of the Omicron coronavirus variant, UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid said on Monday.

“We can conclude there is now community transmission across multiple regions of England,” Javid said in the House of Commons. 

Javid said the United Kingdom has confirmed 261 Omicron cases in England, 71 in Scotland, and 4 in Wales, for a total of 336 confirmed Omicron variant cases. “This includes cases with no links to international travel,” Javid added.

“Recent analysis from the UK Health Security Agency suggests that the window between infection and infectiousness may be shorter for the Omicron variant than for the Delta variant,” Javid said.

“But we don’t yet have a complete picture of whether Omicron causes more severe disease or indeed how it interacts with the vaccines, and so we can’t say for certain at this point whether Omicron has the potential to knock us off our road to recovery,” he added.

Last week, the UK Health Security Agency told CNN that community transmission of the Omicron variant was detected in several cases found in Scotland.

The German branch of McDonald’s has tweaked its marketing slogan to “Vaccination – I’m lovin’ it” on Tuesday, while Nestlè turned its own tagline into “Have a break – Have a shot.”

The two companies have joined more than 150 brands in Germany to temporarily change their advertising slogans to urge people to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Germany is struggling with vaccine hesitancy as it battles the fourth wave of the epidemic, with high hospitalizations and infection rates.

Under the hashtag #ZusammenGegenCorona, or #TogetheragainstCorona, the brands are trying to help spread awareness of the benefits of vaccinations.

Porsche, for example, simply says: “Vaccinate.” Condor, the airline, tells people “We love vaccinating,” changed from their usual  “We love flying.” BMW, instead of “Joy from driving,” has “Joy from vaccinating.” 

Antoni, the Berlin advertising company behind the campaign, said the idea was simple: “Literally ask every brand in Germany to change their slogan into a call to action to encourage vaccinations.” 

The brands answered, Antoni said in a statement. Within a couple of days, companies such as Burger King, McDonalds, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Edeka and Lidl were on board.

The World Health Organization made a strong recommendation Monday against using convalescent plasma to treat Covid-19 patients, saying there was no indication it helped patients and that it took time and resources to administer.

Convalescent plasma is made from the blood of people who have recovered from an infection such as Covid-19. Plasma is the liquid portion of blood carrying immune cells and antibodies – proteins the body makes to fight infection. The plasma can be infused into a sick person in the hope of speeding recovery with from some diseases.

The new WHO recommendations, which were published in the British Medical Journal, said:

Convalescent plasma treatment has been around since the late Victorian era and has been used to treat two other deadly coronaviruses, including MERS and SARS.

WHO said it changed its recommendations because it recognized “no clear benefit for critical outcomes such as mortality and mechanical ventilation for patients with non-severe, severe, or critical illness, and significant resource requirements in terms of cost and time for administration.”

For patients with non-severe illness, the guidance said, it was not justified. For patients with severe and critical illness, there was “sufficient uncertainty” to warrant the continuation of trials.

The decision was based on evidence from 16 trials involving 16,236 patients with non-severe, severe, and critical Covid-19 infection. 

Monday’s guidance also recommended against the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and added to previous recommendations for the use of corticosteroids in patients with severe or critical Covid-19 and for the use of interleukin-6 receptor blockers, as well as conditional recommendations for the use of monoclonal antibody treatments in some patients.

More than 100 people who arrived in India from abroad now appear to be untraceable after some of their cellphones were switched off and residence addresses provided on self-declaration forms were found to be locked, an official from the city of Kalyan-Dombivali, near Mumbai, said Monday. 

India imposed new rules on international arrivals last week, in reaction to the emergence of the Omicron variant.

People arriving in the country must now submit a self-declaration form to an online government portal that includes a 14-day travel history and a proof of a negative Covid-19 PCR test taken within 72 hours prior to their departure. 

On Monday, chief of Kalyan Dombivali’s administrative body, Vijay Suryawanshi, was quoted by Press Trust of India (PTI), an Indian news agency, saying 109 of 295 recent foreign arrivals are untraceable.

While Suryawanshi did not elaborate on where the passengers had flown in from, he told PTI that everyone flying into India from an “at risk” country would have to quarantine at home for seven days in keeping with federal guidelines.