Coronavirus - 5th December 2021

• Protests against Covid restictions in Brussels, Belgium bubbled over into violent clashes between demonstrators and police for the second time in two weeks. Police fired tear gas and water cannon while protestors threw cobblestones.
  
• Denmark reported a “concerning” jump to 183 total Omicron strain cases. The country has a highly developed sequencing regime but the surge is still worrying for its speed.
  
• The UK reported a total 246 Omicron cases, alongside 43,992 infections and 54 deaths, as ministers were told by one government scientific advisor it’s already too late to suppress Omicron with restrictions.
  
• States in India updated Covid death statistics, inflating the daily death tally to its highest rate since 21 July. Bihar state added 2,426 unrecorded deaths and Kerala added 263 deaths. The country confirmed a total 12 Omicron cases.
  
• The first Omicron case was detected in Tunisia.
  
• The World Health Organization continues to reject travel bans against southern African countries, with Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeting it is “disappointing” and “dismaying” to see bans on flights.
  
• The Omicron variant is now present in at least 15 US states, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said on Sunday.
  
• Italy reported 15,021 new Covid cases, 16% up from 12,927 on the same day last week.
  
• Poland detected 22,389 positive Covid infections in the past 24 hours, rising 9% on the 20,574 new cases on Sunday last week. The country recorded its worst death tally, at 570, since April on Wednesday.
  
• Russia confirmed October was its deadliest month in decades after spiking cases. The wave has since reduced but remains high, with a further 1,206 people dying from Covid-related causes on Sunday alongside another 32,602 infections.
  
• France recorded 42,252 new Covid infections in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said, a percentage change of 188% from the 14,646 cases recorded on Sunday three weeks ago. Ministers continue to see vaccination, not lockdowns, as the route out the current wave.
  
• Germany will introduce mandatory Covid vaccines for healthcare workers by 16 March, according to draft legislation seen by Reuters, as the new government led by incoming chancellor Olaf Scholz seeks to suppress Germany’s surging cases with jabs, not lockdowns.
  
• The UK’s justice secretary Dominic Raab stoked the fire of the 2020 Christmas party row, saying a “formal party” would have been “wrong” and broken the rules at the time, piling pressure on prime minister Boris Johnson.
  

  :Left Quotes:   Christmas is around the corner and it’s absolutely crucial that everybody who is eligible gets their booster jab to top-up their immunity before spending time with loved ones.
While our brilliant scientists learn more about the new Omicron variant, we need to do everything we can to strengthen our defences and vaccines are the best way to do that.
This is a national mission and we all have a role to play - so roll up your sleeves and get protected as soon as you can.

We will not defeat this virus if developing nations are left to rely on vaccine donations alone – especially considering the UK has only donated six million out of a pledged 100 million to the Covax initiative.
All countries must have the tools to allow them to produce Covid vaccines on home soil and ramp up production if we are to have a truly effective global vaccine strategy. That means ensuring they have access to the vaccine patents.
So I am urging Boris Johnson to do the right thing and stop blocking the vaccine intellectual property waiver – at least temporarily – to allow developing nations to manufacture the vaccines themselves.
This is a matter of global leadership. And, with over 100 states – including the USA –supporting the proposal, it is clear the UK is becoming increasingly isolated in blocking the waiver to support access to vaccines around the world.
Indeed, it is the least the UK government can do after it brutally slashed aid and hindered humanitarian projects around the world.
The emergence of the new Omicron variant has shown us that, until we achieve vaccine equality, new variants could continue to appear.
Therefore, it is in everybody’s interests that we share vaccine patents – it will be an essential step in beating Covid-19.

 :Left Quotes:  It’s hugely significant that the SNP’s Westminster leader has answered our call by adding his voice to the growing chorus of those who are demanding urgent action to stop pharmaceutical companies from artificially rationing global vaccine supply by holding lifesaving vaccine recipes and technologies hostage.
Vaccine inequality is both morally wrong and places people across Scotland at additional risk from the emergence of dangerous new variants, like Omicron, with epidemiologists warning all along that no one is safe until we all are.
The UK government is looking more and more isolated as it continues to stubbornly stand on the wrong side of history by choosing to put protecting patents and big-pharma’s profits above saving people’s lives.
The prime minister must now act. A failure to do so would be short-sighted, self-defeating and shameful.

:Left Quotes:  The prime minister has been clear that no one is safe until we are all safe. The UK has been a world leader in ensuring developing countries can access vaccines, through our early support to the Covax scheme and commitment to donate surplus vaccines.
We are on track to meet our goal of donating 30m doses by the end of this year, and more next year. We have donated 23m doses already, of which 18.5m have gone to Covax to distribute to developing countries.
The UK is engaging constructively in the Trips waiver debate at the World Trade Organisation and we continue to be open to all ideas that have a positive impact on vaccine production and distribution.

What are the new travel rules?

What about the red list?

Why are travel rules changing?

When will rules be reviewed?

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

The Omicron variant is highly transmissible, it appears to be spreading very rapidly in South Africa and the early signs are that it’s spreading pretty rapidly in the UK too. If those trends continue then over the course of the coming weeks and months, Omicron could even come to replace Delta entirely right around the world.
The Health Security Agency reported as of Friday over 100 confirmed cases of Omicron in the UK, right across the country but with concentrations likely in London and in Scotland.

The decision, said the fund, ‘will enable Muslims from all over the world vaccinated with Sputnik V to participate in the Hajj and the Umrah pilgrimages to Islam’s holiest sites in the cities of Mecca and Medina’.
Foreign tourists vaccinated with Sputnik will still be required to quarantine for 48 hours and take a PCR test.
Saudi Arabia has joined more than 100 countries accepting visitors vaccinated with Sputnik, the RDIF said, adding that only 15 countries including the United States currently require travellers to be jabbed with vaccines other than Sputnik.
The hajj – a must for able-bodied Muslims at least once in their lives – typically packs millions of pilgrims into congested religious sites and could be a major source of contagion during the pandemic.
The outbreak has, for a second year, forced Saudi authorities to dramatically downsize the hajj, and just 60,000 fully vaccinated citizens and residents of the kingdom have taken part this year.
The virus has killed more than five million people since emerging in China in December 2019.
Russia registered Sputnik V in August 2020 ahead of large-scale clinical trials, prompting concern among experts over the fast-tracked process.
But it was since declared safe and more than 90% effective in a report published by leading medical journal the Lancet.
But the Russian vaccine has not so far been approved by the World Health Organization or by the medical authorities of the European Union and the United States.

It’s always been very obvious that, if you don’t vaccinate the world, this is a virus that can mutate. If you’ve got large populations that are unvaccinated, it’s likely to mutate faster and further.
The failure to organise mass vaccination globally has been a huge problem right throughout this crisis. There really have been three things obvious from the beginning:

1. We’re going to live with this virus, we’re not going to get rid of it;
   
2. vaccinations are the only way out of it; and
   
3. that virus anywhere is virus everywhere.
   

So I think, even at this stage, it’s possible to change course. But we need to have it organised and so now it’s not just going to be about the supply of vaccines.
I think over the coming weeks and months, we’ll have a large supply of vaccine flowing even to Africa. But we will have to organise the distribution, the logistics and [it’s] absolutely vitally we’ve got to organise global genomic sequencing so that we know what’s happening in countries.

The Omicron variant has been found in at least 15 American states as of Saturday night

:Left Quotes:   We know we have several dozen cases and we’re following them closely. And we are every day hearing about more and more probable cases so that number is likely to rise.

“Concerning” jump to 183 confirmed cases of the Omicron variant in Denmark

Denmark is one of Europe’s most advanced countries in sequencing of coronavirus variants. It often detects more cases more quickly than its neighbours, which does not necessarily indicate higher rates of infection.
SSI chief said the increase in Omicron cases was nevertheless ‘concerning’, adding that ‘there are now chains of infection where the variant is found in people who have not travelled abroad or been in contact with travellers’. Also on Sunday, the ECDC said Omicron had been reported in 17 countries in its region.
‘The majority of confirmed cases have a history of travel to countries in Africa, with some having taken connecting flights at other locations between Africa and Europe,’ the ECDC said on its website before the Danish announcement.
Nevertheless, ‘several EU/EEA countries (Belgium, Germany, Spain) detected cases without an epidemiological link to areas where community transmission of the Omicron variant is documented or presumed,’ it added.
‘This indicates that undetected community transmission could be ongoing in these countries.’

Italy reports 15,021 new Covid cases on Sunday, 16% up from 12,927 last week

Brussels protest against Covid restrictions turns violent

Poland detected 22,389 positive Covid infections in the past 24 hours

Russia records 32,602 infections and 1,206 deaths

First case of Omicron variant detected in Tunisia

Five senior health officers in Jordan sentenced to three years in prison

Shortly after the deaths, King Abdullah visited the hospital and publicly scolded health officials in the corridor of the hospital, where police were deployed to hold back hundreds of angry relatives and protesters who were encircling the compound.
The royal visit was intended to defuse tensions in a country where anger with the authorities has in the past triggered widespread civil unrest.
Since the incident, the authorities have dismissed scores of officials in state hospitals in a campaign to curb mismanagement and perceived corruption.
It has poured tens of millions of dollars to train and recruit health workers in goverment hospitals that face shortages of qualified staff.

Singapore detects 552 Covid cases and 13 deaths

France reports 42,252 Covid infections and 29 deaths

Norwegian cruise ship with COVID-19 infections arrives in New Orleans

• Protests against Covid restictions in Brussels, Belgium bubbled over into violent clashes between demonstrators and police for the second time in two weeks. Police fired tear gas and water cannon while protestors threw cobblestones.
  
• Denmark reported a “concerning” jump to 183 total Omicron strain cases. The country has a highly developed sequencing regime but the surge is still worrying for its speed.
  
• The UK reported a total 246 Omicron cases, alongside 43,992 infections and 54 deaths, as ministers were told by one government scientific advisor it’s already too late to suppress Omicron with restrictions.
  
• States in India updated Covid death statistics, inflating the daily death tally to its highest rate since 21 July. Bihar state added 2,426 unrecorded deaths and Kerala added 263 deaths. The country confirmed a total 12 Omicron cases.
  
• The first Omicron case was detected in Tunisia.
  
• The World Health Organization continues to reject travel bans against southern African countries, with Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeting it is “disappointing” and “dismaying” to see bans on flights.
  
• The Omicron variant is now present in at least 15 US states, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said on Sunday.
  
• Italy reported 15,021 new Covid cases, 16% up from 12,927 on the same day last week.
  
• Poland detected 22,389 positive Covid infections in the past 24 hours, rising 9% on the 20,574 new cases on Sunday last week. The country recorded its worst death tally, at 570, since April on Wednesday.
  
• Russia confirmed October was its deadliest month in decades after spiking cases. The wave has since reduced but remains high, with a further 1,206 people dying from Covid-related causes on Sunday alongside another 32,602 infections.
  
• France recorded 42,252 new Covid infections in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said, a percentage change of 188% from the 14,646 cases recorded on Sunday three weeks ago. Ministers continue to see vaccination, not lockdowns, as the route out the current wave.
  
• Germany will introduce mandatory Covid vaccines for healthcare workers by 16 March, according to draft legislation seen by Reuters, as the new government led by incoming chancellor Olaf Scholz seeks to suppress Germany’s surging cases with jabs, not lockdowns.
  
• The UK’s justice secretary Dominic Raab stoked the fire of the 2020 Christmas party row, saying a “formal party” would have been “wrong” and broken the rules at the time, piling pressure on prime minister Boris Johnson.