Health News at Your Fingertips

Prof Sir Mark Walport, who is a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) advising Government, told Sky News there was “good cause to be concerned” about Omicron.

He said it “makes sense to try and hold it back” though it will be “impossible to stop it spreading around the world if it is much more infectious than the Delta variant”.

PA Media quote him saying the most important thing people in the UK could do was to have vaccines and take measures such as wearing masks.

Asked if people should be told to wear masks in pubs and restaurants, he said: “If you are in a small, poorly ventilated enclosed space, it makes sense to wear a mask. Clearly when you are drinking and eating it’s not possible to do that but if you’re moving around, then absolutely.

“We know that infection happens in closed spaces indoors and of course, as it gets colder, people are more likely to be indoors and they’re less likely to have the windows open. So if you’re going to wear masks in shops, it makes sense to wear them in other places as well.”

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of council at the British Medical Association, called for hospitality staff to be required to wear masks when servicing customers.

He told Good Morning Britain: “What we believe is that there should be mask-wearing in all settings which are enclosed and indoors.

“Now clearly, that doesn’t apply to people who are eating out, but it should apply to staff, for example, in restaurants and bars so that when you are close to a customer, when you’re in direct line of a customer, maybe a few feet away, and you’re speaking perhaps loudly, you reduce the chance of infecting others.

PA Media quote him saying: “This isn’t just about the public, it’s also about staff and employers as well, because if they have staff who become infected, staff who are ill and self-isolating, that will also affect the economy. So there is a reason for doing this for both customers and employers.”

On the Omicron cases in Scotland, Dr Nagpaul added: “The difficulty here is we’re not sure at the moment exactly how infectious, transmissible and how much the new variant is going to be resistant to the vaccine, if at all. So as this work is being done, the right thing to do is to be cautious, which is what the Government is doing.”

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said there was “no distinction” between people sitting in pubs, trains or hospitals when it came to wearing masks indoors.

She has called for face coverings to be worn in hospitality venues in England, as well as on public transport and in shops.

PA Media quote Rayner telling Sky News: “We think that in hospitality settings that people should be wearing a mask. I got the train here yesterday evening and it was absolutely rammed, you couldn’t even stand up, it was so full, and nobody, very few people, were wearing a mask on that train.

“It’s so important that people wear masks when they’re indoors, in arenas where they’re meeting people and… mixing in large numbers. People should be wearing their masks.”

On wearing masks in pubs, she said: “I think people should… especially if you’re moving around the pub, people should be wearing their masks in hospitality settings. If you’re (in) an indoor setting, there’s no distinction between a pub, sitting in a pub, or sitting on a train, or sitting in a hospital. It’s still a venue that’s indoors and we should be taking the necessary measures to protect people around us.”

Scotland’s deputy first minister John Swinney said that some of the Omicron variant cases identified in Scotland have no travel history, which suggests there is a degree of community transmission.

PA Media quotes him telling BBC Good Morning Scotland: “We obviously have some travel history on some of the cases, I don’t have all of that detail available to me at this stage, but on some of the cases we are aware that there is no travel history involved on some of the cases.

“So what that tells us is that there must be a degree of community transmission of this particular strain of the virus in the absence of direct travel connection for some of the cases in the southern African area.

“So that obviously opens up further challenges for us in terms of interrupting the spread of this particular strain of the virus and that will be the focus of the contact tracing operation that is under way already.”

If you are feeling anxious about the prospects for the impact of the Omicron variant, then there was a slightly reassuring message over vaccine timelines from Prof Anthony Harnden in the UK this morning. He is deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

PA Media quotes him saying to the BBC Breakfast programme that if Omicron has vaccine escape and “turns out to have a transmission advantage, then it would be sensible to have a new vaccine”.

He added: “The mRNA vaccines, that’s the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines, are relatively easy to tweak and the pharmaceutical companies that produce those vaccines have indicated that they may be able to get a variant vaccine within 100 days.”

Prof Greg Towers, from the Division of Infection and Immunity at University College London, said people in the UK needed to adhere to “easier” measures to avoid potential future lockdowns.

PA Media quotes him telling Times Radio this morning: “If we don’t wear masks, and if we ignore social distancing rules, and if we just pretend it’s all over, then what’s going to happen is we’ll get another big wave of infection, and we’ll get put into lockdown again, so if we don’t want lockdown we’ve got to try and stop the spread by easier means like mask-wearing and social distancing.

“Unfortunately, this isn’t a situation of saying when is this going to be over? When are we going to get back to normal? I think we’re going to have to learn to live with this virus and that might mean taking action like having lockdowns if we get surges of infection.

“So basically, we’re looking at behaving in such a way that we suppress waves of infection when they’re on their way – and that I hope will be through vaccination.

“Even if this virus is good at escaping the first vaccine, the vaccine can be modified to make one that is more specific to these new variants.

“And so there are answers to all this, but we just have to keep managing it. We have to not say: ‘When is this going to be over?’ We just have to learn to say: ‘I’m going to wear a mask today on the tube, because that will protect my fellow passengers and reduce the chance of us going into lockdown again’.”

Dutch military police say they have arrested a married couple who left a hotel where they were in quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19 and were attempting to flee the country.

The couple were arrested “in an airplane that was about to depart”, the police force, known as the Marechaussee, said in a statement. It was unclear whether they had tested positive for the new Omicron coronavirus variant.

The Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool reported that the couple, a Spanish man and Portuguese woman, were attempting to fly to Spain.

Reuters note that dozens of passengers who tested positive for Covid-19 after arriving on two flights from South Africa on Friday were being kept in quarantine at a hotel near Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.

The Marechaussee statement said the pair, whose names were not released, had been turned over to health authorities.

Portugal has detected 13 cases of the new Omicron coronavirus variant – all related to players and staff members of the Lisbon football team Belenenses, the health authority DGS said, according to Reuters.

Their most recent game was on Saturday, a Lisbon derby match against Benfica, which sounds like it was absolute chaos due to the Covid outbreak in their ranks.

Prof Anthony Harnden, deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in the UK, has told BBC Breakfast there were two strategies to deal with the variant.

“Either we raise the immunity in the population or we find a matched vaccine,” he said.

“And it’s going to be quite a while before we can get a matched vaccine so it’s sensible to increase the immunity in the population and that will be done by actually encouraging those that are unvaccinated so far to get vaccinated, that is absolutely imperative, but also to make sure that we boost the most vulnerable in order.”

PA Media quote him saying “Inevitably everybody will be offered a booster but what we want to do is make sure that it’s done in a sensible order so that those that are most vulnerable for this infection can get boosted and their natural immunity levels can go up.”

He said the JCVI was looking at reducing the interval between second and booster doses and increasing the age range of who is eligible.

He said it was “really important that we get the immunity levels in the population high” in case the Omicron variant was more transmissible or protection from vaccines was reduced.

The Omicron variant is likely to spread internationally, posing a “very high” global risk where Covid-19 surges could have “severe consequences” in some areas, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said this morning.

The UN agency, in technical advice to its 194 member states, urged them to accelerate vaccination of high-priority groups and to “ensure mitigation plans are in place” to maintain essential health services.

“Omicron has an unprecedented number of spike mutations, some of which are concerning for their potential impact on the trajectory of the pandemic,” the WHO said. “The overall global risk related to the new variant of concern Omicron is assessed as very high.”

Further research is needed to better understand Omicron’s potential to escape protection against immunity induced by vaccines and previous infections, it said, adding that more data was expected in coming weeks.

“Covid -19 cases and infections are expected in vaccinated persons, albeit in a small and predictable proportion”, Reuters report it added.

Deputy First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, has been on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland just now. Of the six people identified as having contracted the Omicron strain, he said:

The individuals concerned are being supported but there is no evidence of serious illness. Obviously we know that Covid can develop into serious illness.

He went on to say:

I think one of the points I would make about the early thinking about the Omicron strain is that it’s as yet unclear whether the strain gives rise to more serious illness. It certainly does look as if it is more transmissible than the Delta variant, for example, which was highly transmissible, but on the evidence that we have available at this stage, it doesn’t appear that Omicron leads to more serious illness. But obviously we we have to do everything we can to try to suppress the strain of the virus and to interrupted circulation within Scotland.

Asked about the prospect for future travel restrictions in Scotland, he said:

We’ve got to look very carefully at what will be the most effective ways of interrupting the circulation of the virus, and that’s the issue that we keep constantly under review within the Scottish Government. We have a range of well established baseline measures that we insist members of the public comply with in relation to the reading of face coverings, to observing social distancing, to ventilated rooms, to hand hygiene arrangements.

If we undertake as many of these measures as we possibly can do, we can take steps to interrupt the circulation of the virus. But we may have to take further measures in the light of the fact that we may be dealing with a strain of the virus which is more transmissible than previous incarnations.

Asked about the prospects for Christmas, Swinny said:

It is too early to say that. I think we are in a much stronger position because of the level of vaccination that we have within our society, and members of the public taking part tremendously in the vaccination programme. So we do have very high levels of protection within the population. It’s what we need to do beyond that, that I think is relevant for the next period ahead

Alongside that confirmation from the Scottish government that six cases of the Omicron variant have been identified, there are some quotes from Scotland’s health secretary Humza Yousaf. He said:

This will be a worrying time for the six people now identified as having the new variant. All will receive expert help and support and Public Health Scotland will undertake enhanced contact tracing in all cases. This will help establish the origin of the virus and any further individuals they have come into contact with in recent weeks.

We have already taken steps and are aligning with the new border restrictions being introduced by the UK Government which will require fully vaccinated arrivals to take a PCR test within two days of arrival and to self-isolate until a negative result is received. These measures will be introduced as soon as possible and kept under constant review. However, we reserve the right to go further if necessary. We are also adopting the expanded red list of countries identified by the UK Government. This will also be kept under review.

We must now redouble our efforts to follow the basic rules that have served us well throughout the pandemic – wear a face covering on public transport and in all indoor settings for food and retail; open windows especially if you have people visiting at home; keep washing your hands regularly and thoroughly. Work from home where possible, take regular lateral flow tests – especially before mixing with others outside your household.

The Scottish government has just issued a statement confirming that six cases of the Omicron variant have been identified in Scotland. That takes the total number of identified cases in the UK to nine. The statement says:

Six cases of the Covid-19 Omicron variant have been identified in Scotland. Four cases are in the Lanarkshire area and two have been identified in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.

Public Health Scotland and local health protection teams are supporting and contact tracing is being undertaken to establish the origin of the virus and any individuals they have come into contact with in recent weeks.

Somewhat in contrast to the gloomy coronavirus news about new restrictions coming into place over the Omicron variant, there are pictures coming out from Singapore and Malaysia where they have just finally opened a long-awaited travel corridor.

Associated Press note that Malaysian health minister Khairy Jamaluddin tweeted that a Covid-19 case was detected during the screening in southern Johor state, but didn’t elaborate. “As we safely reopen our borders, there will be positive cases at points of entry. Risk assessment, isolation and monitoring close contacts will become the norm,” he said.

Under the first phase, only 1,440 travellers who must be citizens, permanent residents or long-term pass holders are allowed from each side per day. The Causeway was one of the world’s busiest land borders before the pandemic struck.

Back to UK junior health minister Edward Argar on Sky News for a moment, asked if the government might tighten up the rules even further in the next three weeks, he said: “It’s not something I’m anticipating.”

Questioned why mask rules were being applied in some settings but not others – particularly crowded hospitality venues – he said:

In pubs, restaurants, hospitality venues, partly we’ve always seen this throughout the pandemic, people are eating, drinking. It’s clearly not practical to wear a mask in those circumstances. In a restaurant a long time is spent sitting down with your group, whoever you come with.

Again describing the government’s decision as “proportionate” and “measured” he said that the situation in retail and transport was different from the situation in hospitality venues because they were often a more confined space.

We don’t believe we need to, or should do that, in hospitality or restaurant venues at this point, and hopefully we won’t need to make any further changes. Hopefully in three weeks we’ll be able to scale back what we’ve done.