The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and the Omicron variant

The Omicron variant could be affecting future flight bookings, but airline industry officials say it will not be clear by how much until after the busy holiday season is over.??

Even still, TSA Administrator David Pekoske says the agency is preparing for a crush of passengers, just “a little bit less” than pandemic records set over Thanksgiving.?

That record was set on the?Sunday after Thanksgiving, when?2.45 million people passed through TSA checkpoints at airports nationwide.?

Numbers have already been “robust,” Pekoske said. About 2.1 million people passed through airport security checkpoints this past Sunday.?

Dec. 23 and Jan. 3 are set to be the busiest, Pekoske said, who advised that passengers should travel during off-peak days.

California will require universal masking in indoor public settings starting Dec. 15 through Jan. 15, California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly announced in a teleconference Monday.

The announcement comes amid the growing number of coronavirus cases and concerns over the new Omicron variant.

There has been a 47% increase in case rates across California since Thanksgiving, according to Ghaly.

The new masking policy will cover about 50% of the state’s population that currently lives in counties that do not have a similar mandate, Ghaly explained.

Some of the more populous counties in the state, including several Bay Area counties, Los Angeles, Yolo, and Ventura counties, already have an indoor masking mandate in place.

“Even a 10% increase in indoor masking can reduce case transmission significantly,” Ghaly said.

People attending big events with 1,000 or more people, who do not show proof of vaccination, will also be required to show a negative coronavirus test result taken within one day of the event.

The state is also recommending visitors or travelers returning to California to get tested within three to five days of arrival.

South?Africa’s Covid-19?positivity?rate rose to 31% on Monday amid the Omicron variant surge, with 13,992 new coronavirus cases reported, according to the latest data from The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).

That represents?the highest?positivity?rate since the Omicron variant was first discovered in?South?Africa.

Monday’s?positivity?rate of 31% is an increase from the 28.9%?positivity?rate reported on Sunday.

South?Africa?reported?a further 11?deaths related to Covid-19 on Monday, bringing the death toll to 90,148 since the pandemic began, according to NICD data.?

As of Monday, the United States has reported more than 50 million cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Nearly 798,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the US, according to JHU data.?

Nearly a third of all cases were reported last winter, between December 2020 and February 2021.?

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020.?

Globally, nearly?271 million cases of Covid-19?have been reported, and the US accounts for?nearly one in five of them (18%),?according to JHU data.?

In the US, more than one in seven people — 15% of the population — have?had Covid-19. To date, case rates are highest in North Dakota and Alaska, where one in five people have reported a case. They’re lowest in Hawaii, Vermont, Oregon, Maine and Maryland, where fewer than one in 10 people have reported a case.?

Together, California with 5.2 million cases, Texas with 4.4 million cases and Florida with 3.8 million cases account for more than a quarter of total US cases, according to JHU data.??

Remember: Experts believe the true burden of disease to be much higher. Between February 2020 and September 2021, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the number of Covid-19 infections in the US was about four times higher than reported.

England’s Premier League announced Monday that it will institute its Covid-19 emergency measures due to a rise in Covid-19 cases across the country. The Premier League also revealed a significant increase of Covid-19 cases?within the league.

The measures will apply to all clubs and will require protocols such as wearing face coverings while indoors, observing social distancing and limiting treatment time, the Premier League said in a statement.?The league will also increase lateral flow and PCR testing of players and staff.?

The Premier League said that it received 42 new positive Covid-19 tests between Dec. 6 and 12, more than triple the previous week’s total of 12.

Manchester United announced Monday that it was halting operations at its training complex for 24 hours to try to slow the spread after a number of positive tests in recent days.?United’s scheduled Tuesday fixture against Brentford is also in doubt, according to the club.?

Another Premier League club, Tottenham Hotspur, had to postpone its game Sunday due to a Covid-19 outbreak within the team which has impacted more than a dozen players and staff.

With 10 players and additional staff members in the NBA’s health and safety protocols, the league has postponed the Chicago Bulls’ two upcoming games.

The Bulls were set to play the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday at home and then travel to Toronto to face the Raptors on Thursday.

No make-up dates were announced.

Last week, a source told CNN 97% of NBA players were vaccinated.

One in every 100 seniors in the United States has died of Covid-19, according to federal data.

More than three-quarters of people who have died from Covid-19 were 65 or older, with at least 514,000 deaths in this age group since the start of the pandemic, according to data from the US Centers from Disease Control and Prevention. The latest data from the US Census Bureau estimates that there are about 50.4 million total people in this age group in the US.

Covid-19 has been especially deadly for people age 75 and older: More than one in every 60 people in this age group have died of Covid-19.

Overall, about one in every 417 people in the US have died of Covid-19 and one in every seven people have been infected – more than 797,000 deaths and nearly 50 million cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. However, experts estimate the true toll of Covid-19 to be even higher.

British Health Secretary?Sajid?Javid?speaks on COVID-19 situation in Parliament in London, Britain December 8th, 2021.?

Omicron will become the dominant variant in London in the next 48 hours, the British health secretary told lawmakers at the UK Parliament.

“There are now 4,713 confirmed cases of Omicron in the UK,” Javid said. “And the UK Health Security Agency estimates that the current rate of, the current number of daily infections are around 200,000.”

In addition to the first fatality from Omicron reported earlier on Tuesday, the health secretary also said 10 people had been admitted to hospital with the new variant.

“It’s vital we remember that hospitalizations and deaths lag infections by around two weeks so we can expect those numbers to dramatically increase in the days and weeks that lie ahead,” he said.?

This photograph taken on December 7, 2021 shows a sign of the World Health Organisation (WHO) at their headquarters in Geneva.?

The overall risk from the Omicron variant remains high, and more information is still needed about the variant, the World Health Organization said in a technical brief about the variant, published Friday.

The overall threat of Omicron is dependent on three key factors, WHO says:

WHO says Omicron appears to have a growth advantage over Delta, adding that it is spreading faster than Delta in South Africa, where there was low Delta circulation. But, it also appears to spread faster in countries with high incidence of Delta, based on current limited evidence, the organizations says.?

“Given the current available data, it is likely that Omicron will outpace the Delta variant where community transmission occurs,” WHO says.?

There is limited data on the clinical severity and vaccine efficacy or effectiveness to Omicron, WHO says.??

On clinical severity, WHO says that while preliminary findings suggest it may be less severe than Delta, and cases reported so far who have been mild or asymptomatic, but “it remains unclear to what extent Omicron may be inherently less virulent.”

More data is needed to understand the severity profile.

For vaccine efficacy and effectiveness, WHO says there are limited available data and no peer-reviewed evidence. Preliminary evidence and the altered antigenic profile of Omicron’s spike protein also suggests that there may be a reduction in vaccine efficacy against infection and transmission. There is also preliminary evidence which suggests that reinfection in South Africa has increased, which may be associated with humoral immune?evasion.

The accuracy of PCR and antigen-based rapid diagnostic tests doesn’t appear to be influenced by Omicron, WHO says.?

On treatments, WHO says that therapeutic interventions that target the host response – corticosteroids, for example — should still be effective. Monoclonal antibodies, however, will have to be tested individually.

WHO gives a number of priority actions for its member states. These include enhanced surveillance, laboratory testing for Omicron, vaccination, a risk-based approach in adjusting international travel measures, public health and social measures, health care system readiness and risk communication and community engagement.?

A CVS pharmacist gives the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to a resident at the Emerald Court senior living community in Anaheim, CA on Friday, January 8, 2021. The vaccine was optional for staff and residents.

Only about half of fully vaccinated?nursing?home residents (51%) – and less than a quarter of fully vaccinated staff (22%) – have received a booster dose of Covid-19 vaccine, according to data published Friday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.?

Booster coverage among residents ranges from 81% in North Dakota to 30% in Arizona. It tends to be higher than average in the Northeast and Great Plains regions, and lower than average in the South.?

Nationally, 87% of residents and 79% of staff are fully vaccinated with either their initial one- or two-dose series, according to the CDC data.?

The federal data includes information submitted through December 5 by facilities certified by the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Coverage may be higher than reported, as data from the most recent week is not yet complete. The share of?nursing?homes reporting data into the CDC varies by state.??

On Sept. 24, the CDC recommended that all seniors and residents in long-term care settings receive a booster dose of Covid-19 vaccine, guidance that was later expanded to all adults. By the end of October, a month after the initial recommendation, about a quarter of residents had received a booster. Now, two months after the initial recommendation, about half have received a booster.?

About 143,000?nursing?home residents and staff have died of Covid-19, according to CMS data, accounting for about 18% of total Covid-19 deaths in the United States.?

There’s a substantial decrease in effectiveness of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines against the?Omicron?variant, according to a study from researchers at Oxford University.

The results suggest the?Omicron?variant may drive a new wave of coronavirus infections, the researchers said, although there’s no evidence it would lead to an increase in severe disease or deaths.?

The Oxford researchers used blood samples collected from people who had received two doses of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer Covid-19 vaccines. For the Pfizer vaccine, effectiveness was lower against?Omicron?than against Delta, except for two to nine weeks after the second dose.?Among those who received two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, “there was no protective effect of vaccination against symptomatic disease with?Omicron?from 15 weeks after the second dose.”

These results may be due in part to differences in the populations who received the vaccines. The AstraZeneca vaccine was used early in the UK’s vaccination program, including in nursing homes and among older and higher-risk populations. The Pfizer vaccine’s high level of effectiveness against?Omicron?at two to nine weeks after the second dose is likely among recently vaccinated young adults and teens.

The study was released as a preprint, which means it has not been peer-reviewed or published.

The researchers noted they could not determine whether vaccines protect against severe disease because of the small number of?Omicron?cases and the lag between infection and severe illness. “It will be some time before effectiveness against severe disease with?Omicron?can be estimated but, based on experience with other variants, this is likely to be substantially higher than the estimates against symptomatic disease,” they wrote.????

“These data are important but are only one part of the picture,” Matthew Snape, a co-author of the paper and professor in pediatrics and vaccinology at the University of Oxford, said in a statement. “They only look at neutralising antibodies after the second dose, but do not tell us about cellular immunity, and this will also be tested using stored samples once the assays are available.”

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Sajid Javid leaves 10 Downing Street on December 07, 2021 in London, England.

The?Omicron?coronavirus variant is spreading at a “phenomenal rate” in the UK, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said on Monday.?

There are “about 10 people” currently in hospital in England with the new variant, Javid told Sky News. He said he could not confirm if anyone in the country had died from?Omicron?but warned “there is always a lag between infection and then hospitalization and then, sadly, death.”?

Omicron?was probably behind around 40% of infections in London, the health secretary said.?He was speaking as guidelines asking people to work from home came into force on Monday.

Javid?urged Britons to accept the offer a third dose of coronavirus vaccine, echoing?Prime Minister Boris Johnson who delivered a televised address Sunday on the need to boost inoculations.??

“I’m afraid it is now clear that two doses of vaccine are simply not enough to give the level of protection we all need,” Johnson said. “But the good news is that our scientists are confident that with a third dose – a booster dose – we can all bring our level of protection back up.”?

Governor Kathy Hochul announcement on the launching of Homeowner Assistance Fund with Federal money at Governor's office on 6th December 2021 in New York, US.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has announced a new temporary indoor mask mandate, but at least one county leader says he won’t be enforcing it.

On Friday, Hochul?announced?the rule, in place from today until at least Jan. 15. It requires New Yorkers to wear a mask in all indoor public spaces unless businesses implement a vaccine requirement.

The governor said she is trying to get ahead of what she calls a “winter surge” for three main reasons: increased cases, reduced hospital capacity and insufficient vaccination rates in certain areas, according to a news release.

Anyone who violates the mask mandate could face fines of up to $1,000 and is subject to all civil and criminal penalties.

But the mandate brought a sharp response from one county leader.

According to a statement from Rockland County Executive?Ed Day, “I told the Governor’s staff that we cannot and will not enforce this requirement as it currently stands. How do you enforce something that’s based on a press release that does not contain adequate information and explanation? The Governor has said that this program will be reevaluated on January 15, 2022, but what metrics will be used as part of this reevaluation?”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits the Health at the Stowe vaccination centre in central London on December 13th, 2021. - Johnson warned of a looming "tidal wave" of Omicron, and brought forward a target to give over-18s a booster jab by one month to the end of December.?

The UK has confirmed its first death from the?Omicron?coronavirus variant, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday.

Johnson provided no further details on the case and did not specify if the person was vaccinated.

Speaking during a visit to a vaccination center in?central?London, Johnson said the?Omicron?variant “is spiking now in London and some other parts of country.”

The variant is now accounting for about 40% of cases in London, according to Johnson who said that “by tomorrow it will be the majority of cases.”

The UK will now need to “hit warp speed” on its rollout of booster doses, Johnson said, stressing the need to “attain a pace and daily number of booster doses that we have never seen before.”