Health News at Your Fingertips

Gillian Keegan, the UK junior health minister, has said the government has the capacity to ramp up the rollout of booster jabs. She told Sky News on the issue of staffing:

Well, we’ve used in the past NHS staff, community nursing staff, pharmacies, the GPs, volunteers, retired doctors and nurses. We’ve used that pool of staff in the past. So I guess they’re going to be looking at which of those they need to bring back in. We do have the facilities and we do have the people and we do the vaccines. So they’ll just be putting the plan together to see what’s what’s going to make most sense.

The UK is aiming for 500,000 jabs a day in bid to outpace Omicron variant.

In the UK, junior health minister Gillian Keegan is doing the media round this morning, and her opening interview has been on Sky News, where she has said: “I’d rather over-react than under-react” to the Omnicron variant.

She said:

We’re trying to get a balance and proportion. And it is difficult because it’s unknown. So we need to have some time where the world’s leading scientists basically sort of figure out what. We know it’s very transmissible. We don’t know whether the vaccine works or the other treatments. So the scientists do need some time for that. We think we’ve got the balanced and proportional response to it, but we will review it in three weeks. That will give scientists enough time to help you give us some insights.

Here’s a quick summary of the changes in Covid rules coming into effect in England today.

• In England face coverings will become compulsory on public transport, and also in shops. That brings it in line with the rest of the UK.
• But unlike Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, people in England do not have to wear masks in pubs and restaurants.
• School staff and pupils in year seven and above are strongly advised to wear face masks in communal areas unless exempt
• Teachers and pupils in Wales or have been told they should wear face coverings in indoor settings.
• Educational and childcare settings should also continue to encourage staff and students to test twice weekly using a lateral flow device.

There are 10 countries on England’s travel red list. Travellers need a negative pre-departure Covid test, a PCR test two days after arrival, and will need to stay in an approved government hotel quarantine.

Hello, it is Martin Belam here in London, taking over from my colleague Samantha Lock in Sydney. I suspect we will be in much of a news holding pattern for the next few days, with increasing case numbers and global spread of the Omicron variant dominating headlines, but no real scientific consensus emerging yet on whether it has the vaccine escape capability that is feared while the work is done to research that. I’ll be bringing you the latest news from the UK and around the world.

Japan has confirmed its first case of the Omicron variant, Kyodo news agency reports, citing unnamed government sources.

A Namibian diplomat in his 30s is thought to have tested positive for the variant at Narita airport near Tokyo upon his arrival on Sunday, the publication said.

Japan on Tuesday banned new foreign entries for at least one month in an attempt to stave off the new Omicron Covid variant.

Prime minister Fumio Kishida said during a press conference:

In order to avoid the worst situation, Japan will first prohibit the entry of foreigners from midnight on November 30th to the whole world as an emergency evacuation precautionary measure. For Japanese etc, in addition to nine countries such as South Africa, 14 countries where infection has been confirmed, and when returning from the region, we will implement strict quarantine measures at designated facilities according to the risk.

Hi, I’m Samantha Lock with you to report all the latest Covid developments from across the world.

In case you missed it, here’s a round-up of all the day’s leading coronavirus news stories.

• Hong Kong will ban non-resident arrivals from 13 more countries in addition to South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Non-residents from Angola, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia will also not be allowed to enter the global financial hub as of 30 November. Additionally, non-residents who have been to Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Israel and Italy in the past 21 days will not be allowed to enter the city from 2 December.
• India stands ready to “expeditiously” send more Covid-19 vaccine doses to Africa to help fight the Omicron variant, New Delhi said in a statement on Monday.
• India also reported a daily rise of 6,990 new Covid cases in the past 24 hours, the lowest seen in the nation in 551 days, according to a ministry of health press release.
• China also pledged to donate 600m vaccine doses to Africa while working to encourage Chinese companies to invest $10bn in the continent over the next three years.
• China is battling a sudden cluster of cases in a Russian border city, after three workers in the Inner Mongolia city of Manzhouli were found to have Covid-19 during routine testing, prompting mass tests of the 300,000 city residents.
• The UK is set to ramp up booster vaccinations and will halve the minimum gap between jabs to three months, aiming to administer 500,000 jabs a day.
• Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and US president Joe Biden have both issued public appeals for vaccination.
• Canada has confirmed an additional two cases of the Omicron variant, bringing the nationwide tally to five cases.
• Ecuador joins the growing list of countries opting to restrict entry to passengers traveling from or via South Africa as well as other African countries.
• Germany reported a daily rise of 45,753 Covid cases and 388 deaths, the Robert Koch Institute reports.
• Stock markets in Asia bounced back again as investors’ concerns about the new Omicron Covid variant eased.
• Singapore’s health ministry said two travellers from Johannesburg who tested positive for the Omicron variant in Sydney had transited through Changi airport.

India stands ready to “expeditiously” send more Covid-19 vaccine doses to Africa to help fight the Omicron variant, New Delhi said late on Monday.

The announcement follows a promise made by China to donate 600m vaccine doses to Africa.

India said it had supplied more than 25 million doses of domestically made shots to 41 African countries, mostly through the global vaccine-distribution network COVAX.

The foreign ministry said in a statement:

The government of India stands ready to support the countries affected in Africa in dealing with the Omicron variant, including by supplies of Made-in-India vaccines. Supplies can be undertaken through Covax or bilaterally.

It said the government had cleared all orders placed by Covax for supplies of the AstraZeneca vaccine to countries such as Malawi, Ethiopia, Zambia, Mozambique, Guinea and Lesotho, apart from delivering doses of the home-grown Covaxin shot to Botswana. It did not say how many doses have been approved recently.

“Any new requirement projected either bilaterally or through COVAX will be considered expeditiously,” it said, also promising the supply of life-saving drugs, test kits, gloves, PPE kits and medical equipment such as ventilators as required.

The chief executive of Moderna has predicted that existing vaccines will be much less effective at tackling Omicron than earlier strains of Covid-19, warning it would take months before pharmaceutical companies can manufacture new variant-specific jabs at scale.

Stéphane Bancel said the high number of Omicron mutations on the spike protein and the rapid spread of the variant in South Africa, suggested the current crop of vaccines may need to be modified next year.

Bancel told the Financial Times:

There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level … we had with Delta. I think it’s going to be a material drop. I just don’t know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I’ve talked to … are like ‘this is not going to be good’.”

Bancel said scientists were worried because 32 of the 50 mutations in the Omicron variant are on the spike protein, which current vaccines focus on to boost the human body’s immune system to combat Covid-19.

Most experts thought such a highly mutated variant would not emerge for another one or two years, Bancel added.

Moderna and Pfizer are currently working on new vaccines to target the Omicron variant and data giving an indication of how the existing vaccines perform against the Omicron variant, and whether it causes severe disease, should become available within weeks.

The White House has honoured Covid frontline workers in an elaborate holiday decoration display.

The display was unveiled on Monday for US president Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden’s first White House Christmas.

Nurses, doctors, teachers, grocery store workers and others are recognised in a gigantic gingerbread White House, which was made into a 158kg gingerbread village with the addition of a school and police, fire and gas stations as well as a hospital, a post office, a grocery store and a warehouse to honour workers who stayed on the job.

Frontline workers are also represented in the iridescent doves and shooting stars that illuminate the East Colonnade hallway, “representing the peace and light brought to us by all the front-line workers and first responders during the pandemic,” the guidebook says.

India’s daily Covid-19 deaths rose by 190 on Monday, bringing the nationwide total death toll to 468,980, according to health ministry data.

There were 6,990 new Covid cases reported in the past 24 hours. The figure is the lowest seen in the nation in 551 days, according to a ministry of health press release.

India’s active caseload stands at 100,543 – the lowest in 546 days.

The nation has been steadily reporting lower daily rises over the past few weeks.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and US president Joe Biden have both issued public appeals for vaccination.

Trudeau said in a tweet on Monday night local time:

Let’s be clear: getting vaccinated is the best thing you can do right now.

So if you don’t have your shots yet, get them. And now that we have enough vaccine doses for every kid between the ages of 5 and 11 to get their first shot, make sure you get your kids vaccinated too.

Biden issued a video call around the same time, saying:

If you are vaccinated but still worried about the new variant, get your booster. If you aren’t vaccinated, get that shot.

Ecuador joins the growing list of countries opting to restrict entry to passengers traveling from or via South Africa as well as other African countries.

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

The latest Covid numbers from Germany are now in.

The country reported a daily rise of 45,753 Covid-19 cases and 388 deaths, the Robert Koch Institute reports.

Germany’s top health officials have previously raised the prospect of a national lockdown, warning that a rapidly increasing number of coronavirus cases and a dramatic rise in the number of patients in intensive care meant contact reduction was the only way of tackling the crisis and avoiding “the road to chaos”.