Health News at Your Fingertips

Rwanda suspended direct flights to and from southern Africa on Sunday to prevent the new Omicron Covid strain’s spread, the prime minister’s office said.

It comes after the landlocked east African country reimposed a 24-hour quarantine on Friday, coming into effect Sunday, for all arriving travellers.

Prime minister Édouard Ngirente’s office also said it would now be compulsory to be fully vaccinated and tested at events such as conferences and concerts.

But the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, urged countries on Sunday to avoid travel bans, as the transmissibility and severity of the new variant are still being investigated and such a policy “attacks global solidarity”. (See my earlier post for more details.)

The Czech president Miloš Zeman carried out the prime minister’s inauguration ceremony from a glass perspex cubicle on Sunday, after becoming the latest in a long tally of world leaders to test positive for Covid.

Zeman sat in a wheelchair and wore a face covering while appointing Petr Fiala, of the centre-right Civic Democratic party, as prime minister at the Lány Chateau near Prague. He was accompanied by a medic in full protective gear.

Leaders such as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, former US president Donald Trump, Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, and UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, who became critically ill with the disease, have all tested positive for the virus.

Fiala ousted incumbent Andrej Babiš, whose offshore financial arrangements were spotlighted by The Guardian’s Pandora Papers investigation published last month.

The new Czech government’s agenda includes suppressing a new wave of Covid infections threatening to overwhelm hospitals, with Czech positive tests surging to 27,793 on Friday from 5,842 four weeks before on 29 October.

The Czech government declared a 30-day state of emergency on Friday, introducing new restrictions such as banning Christmas markets and imposing a 10pm curfew on restaraunts, bars and nightclubs.

The head of the World Health Organization in Africa on Sunday urged countries to keep borders open, saying banning flights over the potentially more transmissable Omicron strain “attacks global solidarity.”

“With the Omicron variant now detected in several regions of the world, putting in place travel bans that target Africa attacks global solidarity,” said WHO regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moet, AFP reported.

The WHO said in a statement it stands with African nations and calls for borders to remain open, after a spate of travel bans were announced on Sunday.

“Travel restrictions may play a role in slightly reducing the spread of Covid-19 but place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods,” the UN agency’s statement said. “If restrictions are implemented, they should not be unnecessarily invasive or intrusive, and should be scientifically based.”

Moet’s comments come after Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa, where Omicron was first sequencesd on 24 November, called on countries to “urgently” reverse “scientifically unjustified” flight bans.

“The only thing the prohibition on travel will do is to further damage the economies of the affected countries and undermine their ability to respond to, and recover from, the pandemic,” he added, urging South Africans to get vaccinated.

The WHO and other researchers are still assessing the virulence and severity of the strain and whether it could evade existing vaccines – with preliminary research showing more than 30 mutations to the virus spike protein.

G7 health ministers will hold an urgent meeting on Monday to discuss the Omicron variant.

The G7 is made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and US, and currently the UK holds presidency.

The meeting follows a flurry of positive Omicron test results in the UK, Germany and Italy, with the French health minister saying on Sunday that the strain is likely to also be circulating in France. “There is no identification yet, but it’s a matter of hours,” Olivier Veran said.

“Under the UK presidency an urgent meeting of G7 health ministers will also be convened on Monday 29 November to discuss the developments on Omicron,” the Department of Health and Social Care said on Sunday.

Here’s the latest UK Covid data visualised, showing new daily cases largely above 35,000 since October.

Health secretary Sajid Javid told Sky it “would be irresponsible to make guarantees” over potential holiday restrictions, but said: “I think people should continue with their plans as normal for Christmas, I think it’s going to be a great Christmas.”

Anthony Fauci, US President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said on Sunday the US could face a potential Covid “fifth wave” amid rising cases, stagnating vaccination rates and the “troubling” Omicron variant.

“Right now we have the window into the mutations that are in this new variant,” Fauci told NBC’s Meet the Press, “and they are troublesome in the fact that there are about 32 or more variants in that very important spike protein of the virus, which is the business end of the virus.

“In other words, the profile of the mutations strongly suggest that it’s going to have an advantage in transmissibility and that it might evade immune protection that you would get, for example, from the monoclonal antibody or from the convalescent serum after a person’s been infected and possibly even against some of the vaccine-induced antibodies.

“So it’s not necessarily that that’s going to happen, but it’s a strong indication that we really need to be prepared for that.”

The US has not yet recorded an Omicron variant infection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Fauci urged the 62 million eligible Americans who are not yet vaccinated to get jabbed.

My colleague Victoria Bekiempis in New York has the full story here.

Stricter lockdown measures came into effect in the Netherlands on Sunday, as the country sees climbing Covid rates and at least 13 infections of the new Omicron variant.

The Netherlands recorded 22,031 new Covid infections on Saturday, up from 13,848 new cases two weeks beforehand.

At least 13 travellers flying into Amsterdam on Friday tested positive for the new Omicron strain, which the World Health Organization has labelled a “variant of concern” for its high transmissability.

Public places such as restaraunts, bars, non-essential shops, theatres and cinemas must close between 5pm and 5am amid new curfew measures.

The Dutch government has said all non-urgent surgeries, such as hip replacements, will be postponted to free up intensive care beds, after Dutch hospitals warned ICU units could be overwhelmed by the end of the week.

The UK steps up targeted testing in Brentwood, Essex, one of three places alongside Nottingham and Westminster to record Omicron variant cases.

Targeted testing is now underway across Essex, with two locations stressed by authorities.

Essex County Council said churchgoers and staff who attended Trinity Church in Pilgrims Hatch on 21 November should take a PCR test, PA reports.

The council also said customers, staff and delivery couriers who visited KFC on Brentwood High Street on 19 November between 1pm and 5pm whould take a PCR test.

People who tested positive, plus all members of their households, are being re-tested and told to isolate, said the Department of Health & Social Care. Targeted testing is now underway across Essex.

Prime minister Boris Johnson said on Saturday that anyone coming into contact with an Omicron-positive person must self-isolate at home for 10 days – whether they are vaccinated or not.

Voters in Switzerland firmly backed Covid passes on Sunday.

A referendum resulted in 62% approval for the Covid certificate, which requires people to have had a vaccination or antibodies to enter restaurants and other indoor spaces, based on a high 65% turnout.

The restrictions have been in place since September. The highest referendum support came from Basel City and Zurich.

The result comes after a divisive campaign and rising Covid cases. Switzerland reported 8,033 new Covid cases on Friday, climbing from 3,297 on 25 October, and 15 new deaths.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said the world faces a “race against time” to understand Omicron and potentially combat the new variant.

“We know we are now in a race against time,” von der Leyen said on Sunday, AFP reported. She called for the public to take precautions now – so scientists have time to understand Omicron and chart a path forward.

“The scientists and manufacturers need two to three weeks to have a full picture about the quality of the mutations of this Omicron variant,” she said.

It comes after BioNTech said it could tweak its Covid vaccine, made with Pfizer, in 100 days if needed.

“We need to buy time,” she said – urging people to get vaccinated, wear masks and socially distance.

What exactly is the Omicron variant?

The New York Times has this helpful explainer.

Each coronavirus contains nearly 30,000 letters of RNA. This genetic information allows the virus to infect cells and hijack them to make new viruses.

Omicron carries about 50 mutations not seen in combination before, including more than 30 mutations on the spike protein that the coronavirus uses to attach to cells.

The spike protein has several mutations found in other variants of concern, including D614G, N501Y, K417N and E484A, which lies at the same location as E484K, the “Eek” mutation.

More research is needed to determine whether Omicron’s collection of mutations will give the variant an advantage over widely circulating variants like Delta, or cause more severe disease.