Omicron Covid-19 variant: Top international developments today

Omicron reported in 57 countries, hospitalisations set to rise, says WHO

The Omicron variant has been reported in 57 nations, with Covid cases rising in southern Africa including Zimbabwe, and the number of patients needing hospitalisation is likely to rise as it spreads, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

The WHO, in its weekly epidemiological report, said more data was needed to assess the severity of disease caused by the Omicron variant and whether its mutations may reduce protection from vaccine-derived immunity. “Even if the severity is equal or potentially even lower than for Delta variant, it is expected that hospitalizations will increase if more people become infected and that there will be a time lag between an increase in the incidence of cases and an increase in the incidence of deaths,” it said.

Pfizer may only partially protect against Omicron

Study suggests Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine may only partially protect against Omicron. The Omicron variant of the coronavirus can partially evade the protection from two doses of Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine, the research head of a laboratory at the Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa said on Tuesday. Still, the study showed that blood from people who had received two doses of the vaccine and had a prior infection were mostly able to neutralise the variant, suggesting that booster doses of the vaccine could help to fend off infection.

There is not significant data yet on how vaccines from Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and other drugmakers hold up against the new variant. All the manufacturers, including Pfizer and BioNTech, are expected to release their own data within weeks.

Likely less severe, says Dr. Fauci

Top US infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday that preliminary evidence indicates that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus likely has a higher degree of transmissibility but is less severe. He said the United States was doing its own tests to determine the protectiveness of the current vaccines against the variant and expects results sometime next week. Umer Raffat, an analyst for Evercore ISI, cautioned against reading too much into a single study, noting there has been significant variability in measuring declines in antibody levels in previous lab studies. “Let’s wait for additional studies to draw a mosaic,” he said.

South Korea’s daily virus jump exceeds 7,000 for first time

New coronavirus infections in South Korea exceeded 7,000 for the first time since the start of the pandemic on Wednesday as hours-long lines snaked around testing stations in the capital Seoul amid a worsening virus crisis. More than 5,600 of the new 7,175 cases were reported in Seoul and the nearby metropolitan region, where a delta-driven surge has led to a shortage of hospital beds and strained an already depleted health care workforce.

The country’s death toll exceeded 4,000 after 63 virus patients died in the past 24 hours. The 840 patients in serious or critical conditions were an all-time high, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said.

Japan finds fourth case of Omicron variant

Japan has reported its fourth case of the Omicron coronavirus variant, TV Asahi said on Wednesday. The fresh case was a man in his 50s who had stayed in Nigeria, the network reported. The Japanese government has enforced tighter border controls against the Omicron variant.

(With inputs from Reuters and AP)