Tag Archives: Omicron

Shanghai’s Zero Covid Policy literally have residents starving as cases increase

Revelations 6:8 “And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Apocalyptic scenes in Shanghai’s rebellion against Zero Covid chaos: Residents attack police after being evicted to create quarantine centers and try to break barricades in hunt for food… while hazmat-clad Communist thugs still can’t stop cases going up
  • Dozens of buildings in the city have been converted to makeshift isolation hubs as PPE-clad local officials struggle to contain record infection rates, which have surpassed 25,000 in recent days.
  • Restrictions have seen residents confined to their homes and face food and water shortages, with other clips show locals bursting through barricades demanding food.
  • Strict lockdown rules have been in place city-wide since April 3 in a bid to control the super-transmissible but milder Omicron strain. But cases in China are still on the rise.
  • Pressure on the city to bring its outbreak under control is mounting from above, with President Xi Jinping warning on Wednesday that strict virus measures ‘cannot be relaxed’ and proclaiming that ‘persistence is victory,’ in a speech published by state media.

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Two New Omicron Sub-Variants have Popped Up in NYC

Revelations 6:8 “And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Two NEW sub-variants of the Omicron ‘stealth’ variant are discovered in NYC as cases jump 60% in the Big Apple and some experts warn they could be a setback for the US: HHS EXTENDS America’s Covid state of emergency until July
  • New York health officials have detected two fast rising sub-strains of the BA.2 COVID-19 ‘stealth’ variant, which is itself a sub-variant of Omicron
  • The ‘stealth’ variant makes up 86% of US Covid cases, the CDC revealed during its weekly data report earlier this week
  • Some experts, including those at the WHO, warn that it is too early to put the pandemic behind up and it will continue to be a threat going forward
  • The Department of Health and Human Services also extended the country’s Covid state of emergency into July as cases rise in some parts of the country

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Supply chain interruptions will continue over next 6 weeks as COVID-19 variant impacts labor market

Rev 6:6 NAS And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Billionaire supermarket CEO warns of potential meat, egg shortage as omicron disrupts US supply chain
  • Billionaire Gristedes CEO John Catsimatidis, went on to say that many of these interruptions will continue over the next 6 weeks as the COVID-19 variant impacts the labor market
  • Various products, including eggs, poultry, and beef, go up because of low supply and high demand
  • He added that the price hikes and supply chain shortages have been exacerbated by the rising cost of oil, which is necessary for transportation.

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Breakdown of services due to Omicron explosion

Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.

Important Takeaways:

  • Omicron explosion spurs nationwide breakdown of services
  • First responders, hospitals, schools and government agencies have employed an all-hands-on-deck approach to keep the public safe, but they are worried how much longer they can keep it up.
  • In Kansas’ Johnson County, paramedics are working 80 hours a week.
  • Pharmacies have been slammed by staffing shortages, either because employees are out sick or have left altogether.
  • In Los Angeles, more than 800 police and fire personnel were sidelined because of the virus
  • In New York City, officials have had to delay or scale back trash and subway services

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Concerns about public safety in L.A.

Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.

Important Takeaways:

  • More than 1,000 L.A.-area police officers, firefighters, paramedics ill or home quarantining due to COVID
  • More than 500 employees of the Los Angeles Police Department — including 416 sworn officers
  • The Los Angeles Fire Department had 201 employees out due to the coronavirus
  • Sheriff’s Department had 552 employees out, including 389 sworn deputies
  • A spokesman for L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti called it an “unprecedented surge”

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‘Tidal wave’: Omicron could put U.S. COVID-19 surge into overdrive

By Joseph Ax and Barbara Goldberg

(Reuters) – Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, the United States is confronting another dark winter, with the red-hot Omicron variant threatening to further inflame an already dangerous surge of cases.

Hospitalizations for COVID-19 have jumped 45% over the last month, and cases have increased 40% to a seven-day average of 123,000 new infections a day, according to a Reuters tally.

Pfizer Inc, one of the chief vaccine makers, on Friday predicted the pandemic would last until 2024 and said a lower-dose version of its vaccine for children ages 2 to 4 generated a weaker-than-expected immune response, which could delay authorization.

The Omicron variant appears to be far more transmissible than previous iterations of the virus and more agile in evading immune defenses, according to early studies.

Public health officials say it is likely to become the dominant variant in the country, following fast-moving spreads in countries such as South Africa and the United Kingdom, and could strain hospitals still struggling to contain this summer’s Delta variant surge.

“GET BOOSTED NOW. Tidal wave of Omicron likely coming to a hospital near you soon,” Dr. Tom Frieden, former chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), posted on Twitter.

Preliminary data in South Africa suggests Omicron leads to milder illness than the Delta variant, which is still driving much of the current wave. But a British study released on Friday found no difference in severity between the two variants.

Either way, Omicron’s extraordinary level of infectiousness means it could cause many additional deaths, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on Friday.

“When you have a larger number of people getting infected, the total amount of hospitalizations is going to be more. That’s just simple math,” Fauci told CNBC.

Fauci also said officials are discussing whether to redefine what it means to be “fully vaccinated” to include booster shots, which according to early studies significantly improve protection against severe cases from the Omicron variant. President Joe Biden warned on Thursday that unvaccinated Americans face “severe illness and death” in coming months.

The latest surge is creating yet another round of disruptions to daily life, though widespread lockdowns have not been put in place. Several states have hit alarming levels of cases and hospitalizations.

Exhausted hospital workers in Ohio who are in their 22nd month of pandemic response will be getting some help starting on Monday from 1,050 National Guard troops – including 150 nurses, emergency medical technicians and others with medical training – being deployed to hospitals around the state, Governor Mike DeWine told a news conference on Friday.

In New York City, Radio City Music Hall announced that Friday’s four performances of the Rockettes’ iconic Christmas show were canceled due to “breakthrough COVID-19 cases in the production.” Broadway shows have also canceled performances this week after outbreaks among vaccinated cast members.

Both the National Hockey League and National Basketball Association postponed games this week, and the NBA and National Football League imposed heightened COVID-19 restrictions after dozens of players tested positive.

The CDC released a new “test-to-stay” strategy on Friday that allows unvaccinated children to remain in school even if they are exposed to the virus.

The protocol is intended to replace automatic quarantines, which have required tens of thousands of students to miss school days this fall.

“If exposed children meet a certain criteria and continue to test negative, they can stay at school instead of quarantining at home,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters.

Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University, on Friday praised the test-to-stay school policy change but said implementation would still be a challenge, in part due to persistent testing shortages.

“I’m not sure how we’re able to literally implement this test-to-stay when we don’t even have enough testing for people who are symptomatic,” she told CNN.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in Princeton, New Jersey, and Barbara Goldberg in Maplewood, New Jersey; Additional reporting by Nandita Bose, Carl O’Donnell, Susan Heavey, Caroline Humer, Mrinalika Roy, Leroy Leo and Frank Pingue; Editing by Howard Goller)

Omicron delivers another uncertain holiday season to pandemic-weary Americans

By Joseph Ax and Julia Harte

(Reuters) – Americans face an uncertain and anxiety-filled holiday season for the second consecutive year, as the highly contagious Omicron variant threatens to intensify an already alarming surge of COVID-19 cases.

Public health officials have voiced deepening concerns about the rising number of infections, warning that hospitals – still fighting the effects of the Delta variant – could find themselves stretched beyond their limits if the two variants combine to create a fresh wave.

Maine set a record for the number of hospitalized COVID patients on Wednesday, a day after Michigan hit a new high. New Jersey recorded its highest number of cases on Thursday since mid-January, at the peak of last winter’s surge.

Over the past month, new cases have risen nearly 40% to a seven-day average of 121,000 new infections per day, according to a Reuters tally. That represents more than half of the level at this point in 2020, days after the first coronavirus vaccine was approved for emergency use.

Deaths have risen 18% since mid-November to an average of 1,300 lives lost a day. COVID hospitalizations have risen about 45% over the last month.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said on Thursday that the Omicron variant would soon dominate infections.

“We’ve seen that in South Africa, we’re seeing it in the UK, and I’m absolutely certain that’s what we’re going to be seeing here relatively soon,” said Fauci, who will meet with President Joe Biden Thursday afternoon to discuss the government’s response.

In South Africa, the United Kingdom and Denmark, the number of new Omicron infections has been doubling every two days.

Britain recorded nearly 80,000 new cases on Wednesday, its highest single-day total since the pandemic began, and officials there have warned that hospital admissions could soon hit record levels because of Omicron’s transmissibility.

Preliminary data suggests Omicron may be more contagious than Delta but less likely to cause severe illness, though much remains unknown. Research also indicates that the two-dose vaccine regimens have vastly reduced protection against Omicron but that a third booster dose restores much of the vaccine’s efficacy.

In New York City, the percentage of people testing positive for COVID-19 doubled in three days, according to Dr. Jay Varma, a senior public health adviser to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“Um, we’ve never seen this before in #NYC,” he wrote on Twitter, adding that the only explanation is Omicron’s ability to evade both natural and vaccine-induced immunity.

The surge has prompted worried Americans to reconsider holiday travel plans for the second consecutive year. Experts have said vaccinated individuals can travel safely as long as they wear masks and avoid unnecessary risks such as large crowds and indoor gatherings.

After months of planning a trip to Florida to see his parents for Christmas and his mother’s birthday, Kalaya’an Mendoza of Queens, New York, told Reuters he was forced to cancel it when he learned that several people at an event he attended on Monday had tested positive.

“I’m a little bit wrecked,” Mendoza, 43, said in an interview on Thursday. “It feels like 2020 all over again. I had to weigh my very intense Filipino need to be with family with their care and safety.”

Mendoza, who has not seen his parents since December 2019, said he was angry at how little progress the U.S. government had made on fighting the pandemic while spending billions of dollars this year on other items, such as the military.

“I remember watching my neighbors get carted away in body bags at the start of this pandemic, and two years in, we shouldn’t be here,” he said.

The increasing caseload has wreaked havoc on efforts by companies to return to normalcy, including postponing plans to bring workers back to the office. Citigroup Inc has told New York-based employees that they can work from home through the holidays, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

The United States leads the world in daily infections, accounting for one in every five cases reported globally. The country has seen more than 800,000 deaths and 50 million infections since the pandemic began.

At least 36 states have reported confirmed Omicron cases, CDC officials said on Wednesday.

The National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association have canceled several games this week after COVID-19 outbreaks hit several teams.

The National Football League has not yet announced any postponements after nearly 100 players were placed on the COVID-19 reserve list, including more than a dozen Cleveland Browns, who are scheduled to play the Las Vegas Raiders on Saturday.

(Reporting by Julia Harte and Joseph Ax in New York; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg, Tyler Clifford and Matt Scuffham in New York; Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; and Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

UK COVID-19 cases hit record high for second day

By Paul Sandle and Kylie MacLellan

LONDON (Reuters) -New cases of COVID-19 in Britain hit a record high for the second day running on Thursday, as England’s Chief Medical Officer warned daily hospital admissions could also hit new peaks due to the fast-spreading Omicron coronavirus variant.

Britain reported 88,376 new infections, the highest since the start of the pandemic and up around 10,000 since the previous record set on Wednesday.

The surge in cases was piling pressure on a health service struggling with staff sickness, England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said on Thursday.

Omicron is so transmissible that even if it proves to be milder than other variants, it could still cause a surge in hospital admissions, Whitty told lawmakers.

The record for the number of people admitted to hospital with COVID-19 is 4,583 set in January.

“It is possible, because this is going to be very concentrated over a short period of time, even if it’s milder, you could end up with a higher number than that going into hospital on a single day,” he said.

However, he said vaccinations could cut the numbers admitted to intensive care and shorten the time spent in hospital. On Thursday there were 849 admissions.

Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency, said there were 15 proven cases of Omicron in hospitals, but that the number was likely to be much higher.

Although new cases were at a record high according to official data, Britain did not have mass testing capacity in March 2020 when the pandemic first hit the country, and so the scale of infections at that point is unknown.

A senior emergency doctor said hospitals, particularly in London, were struggling to maintain staffing levels due to the number who are having to isolate with COVID-19.

“Even if we are not seeing a big rise in hospitalizations yet, we are already seeing the effect on not having the staff to run shifts properly and safely,” Katherine Henderson, an emergency consultant in London and president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told BBC Radio.

“So we are worried about patient harm coming about because we just don’t have the staff.”

The education minister also warned of problems with staff shortages, and said his department would work with ex teachers who wanted to return to the profession to help.

Britain is betting that vaccine boosters will prevent serious illness from Omicron.

The government has also advised people to work from home, mandated mask wearing in public places and has introduced COVID-19 passes to enter some venues and events in England, but has stopped short of previous lockdown measures.

“If it looked as if the vaccines were less effective than we were expecting, that for example would be a material change to how ministers viewed the risks going forward,” Whitty said.

(Additinoal reporting by William James, Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Gareth Jones and Alison Williams)

UK to remove all countries from COVID travel red list on Wednesday

LONDON (Reuters) -The British government will remove all 11 countries from its COVID-19 travel red list from Wednesday because there is now community transmission of Omicron in Britain, Health Secretary Sajid Javid told parliament.

The new Omicron variant was first detected in southern Africa and Hong Kong. The British government added 11 African countries to its red list from late November, meaning that only UK citizens or residents arriving from those nations were allowed in and then had to quarantine in a hotel.

“Now that there is community transmission of Omicron in the UK and Omicron has spread so widely across the world, the travel red list is now less effective in slowing the incursion of Omicron from abroad,” Javid said.

“We will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4 a.m. tomorrow morning.”

The 11 countries which will be removed are Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

CANCELLATIONS

Travel companies had urged the government to reduce restrictions as soon as possible. London’s Heathrow Airport said last week it was seeing high levels of business travelers cancelling due to concerns over restrictions.

Britain will still require all inbound travelers to take either a PCR or a rapid lateral flow test a maximum of 48 hours before departure, a measure Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said would be reviewed in the first week of January.

Mark Tanzer, Chief Executive of travel association ABTA, welcomed the removal of the red list but said testing should also have been scrapped.

“With the testing measures now extending over the Christmas and New Year period, and the industry quickly approaching peak-booking season for summer 2022, travel businesses are facing a very serious situation,” he said in a statement.

“Consumer confidence in travel has suffered a significant setback, which will outlast these restrictions.”

Arrivals from the red list countries have had to pay thousands of pounds to quarantine in government-approved hotels. Many have complained on social media about the costs and conditions of their stay.

A lack of available rooms also left some people trapped abroad waiting for space to become available in the hotels.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan and Elizabeth Piper; editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Paul Sandle and Gareth Jones)

 

Germany, U.S. take new COVID restrictions as Omicron spreads across globe

By Joseph Nasr and Jeff Mason

BERLIN/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Germany decided on Thursday to bar the unvaccinated from all but the most essential business and the United States prepared further travel restrictions as the world scrambled to curb the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

With countries including the United States, India and France reporting their first Omicron cases, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she hoped the pandemic would not completely stifle economic activity.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty, but it could cause significant problems. We’re still evaluating that,” she told the Reuters Next conference.

The new measures in Germany focus on the unvaccinated, who will only be allowed in essential businesses such as grocery stores and pharmacies, while legislation to make vaccination mandatory will be drafted for early next year.

“We have understood that the situation is very serious,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news conference.

A nationwide vaccination mandate could take effect from February 2022 after it is debated in the Bundestag and after guidance from Germany’s Ethics Council, she said.

Eager to avoid derailing a fragile recovery of Europe’s biggest economy, Germany kept businesses open to the almost 69% of the population that is fully vaccinated as well as those with proof of having recovered from the virus.

In the United States, the Biden administration was expected to announce steps included extending requirements for travelers to wear masks through mid-March.

By early next week the United States will require inbound international travelers to be tested for COVID-19 within a day of departure, regardless of vaccination status.

And private health insurance companies will be required to reimburse customers for at-home COVID-19 tests, as part of a winter strategy that Biden is due to announce at 1840 GMT.

“The president is going to unveil a very robust plan, pull out all the stops to prepare for the winter and to prepare for the new variant,” White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told broadcaster MSNBC.

UNKNOWN

Much remains unknown about Omicron, which was first detected in southern Africa last month and has been spotted in at least two dozen countries, just as parts of Europe were already grappling with a wave of infections of the Delta variant.

But the European Union’s public health agency said Omicron could be responsible for more than half of all COVID infections in Europe within a few months, lending weight to preliminary information about its high transmissibility.

“It’s going to take about two more weeks to have more definitive information about the Omicron variant,” U.S. Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine said in an interview for the Reuters Next conference, adding that travel restrictions could slow the spread and give authorities the time to assess what further steps could be needed.

South Africa said it was seeing an increase in COVID-19 reinfections in patients contracting Omicron – with people who have already had the illness getting infected again – in a way that it did not see with other variants.

The first known U.S. case, announced late on Wednesday, was a fully vaccinated person in California who had travelled to South Africa. Another case was reported in Minnesota on Thursday. The two French cases, in the greater Paris region and in eastern France, were passengers arriving respectively from Nigeria and South Africa.

Global shares fell on Thursday, reversing gains from the previous session as a lack of information about Omicron left markets volatile, while crude oil futures extended losses.

TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS

Russia has imposed a two-week quarantine for travelers from some African countries including South Africa, the Interfax news agency said, quoting a senior official. Hong Kong extended a travel ban to more countries and Norway, among others, re-introduced travel restrictions.

Amid all the new restrictions, Europe’s largest budget airline, Ryanair, said it expected a challenging time at Christmas, although it was still optimistic about summer demand.

In the Netherlands, health authorities called for pre-flight COVID-19 tests for all travel from outside the European Union, after it turned out that most of the passengers who tested positive after arriving on two flights from South Africa on Nov. 26 had been vaccinated.

In France, the country’s top scientific adviser, Jean-Francois Delfraissy, said the “true enemy” for now was still the more familiar Delta variant of the virus, spreading in a fifth wave.

Laboratory analysis of the antibody-based COVID-19 therapy GlaxoSmithKline is developing with U.S. partner Vir has indicated the drug is effective against Omicron, the British drugmaker said.

And Novavax Inc said it could begin commercial manufacturing of a COVID-19 vaccine tailored for the Omicron coronavirus variant in January next year, while it tests whether or not its current vaccine works against the variant.

(Reporting by Reuters bureau; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Nick Macfie and Frances Kerry)