South Africa’s health minister said on Friday that vaccines and past infections could be a major reason the current wave of coronavirus infections, fueled by the omicron variant, appear to be milder.
“We think it may not necessarily only be that omicron is less virulent, but we believe that this vaccine coverage, also in addition to the natural immunity of people who have been in contact with the virus, adds also to protection, “Health Minister Joe Phaahla said at a press briefing. “That’s why we see mild illness.”
Michelle Groome, head of South Africa’s National Institute of Communicable Diseases, told the virtual conference on Friday that the country had seen a slight increase in hospitalizations and deaths. But “this level is much lower even than the reference period that we observed between the second and third waves,” she said.
Groome added in a tweet that the disease “is likely to be milder due to our underlying immunity, rather than the inherent virulence of the virus.” She warned that uninfected and unvaccinated people were still at risk of serious illness from the new variant.
Researchers attempted to understand the clinical severity of the omicron variant and the vaccine’s effectiveness against the latter variant, which has spread rapidly around the world since last month. A private study in South Africa said this week that omicron appears to cause less severe disease than earlier variants of the coronavirus, but is more resistant to the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine widely used there.
The study by insurer Discovery Health also reported that the risk of hospitalization among adults who developed covid-19 was 29% lower than in the initial wave of the coronavirus pandemic that emerged in March 2020.
The World Health Organization in Africa said earlier this week that the initial phase of the current wave resulted in fewer deaths than previous outbreaks, but warned that the trend could change further in the coming weeks.
U.S. officials on Friday stepped up calls on unvaccinated Americans to get vaccinated against the new omicron variant that has contributed to record infections in New York City and threatened to wipe out a second holiday season in Europe .
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OMICRON IN FULL STRENGTH
Much remains unknown about the omicron, but officials warn that it appears to be more transmissible than the delta variant, which has already put pressure on hospitals around the world. The uncertainty alone was enough for many to change their plans.
In the United States, President Joe Biden’s administration has resisted tightening restrictions, but also sketched dire scenarios for the unvaccinated in a plea for hesitant Americans to get vaccinated.
“For the unvaccinated, you envision a winter of serious illness and death, for yourselves, your families and the hospitals that you could soon overwhelm,†White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff said on Friday. Zients, echoing the president’s own comments earlier this week.
The new variant is already in “full force” in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, with new cases hitting a one-day high of more than 8,300 on Thursday. But the new hospitalizations and deaths – so far – are well below their spring 2020 peak and even where they were around the same time last year, according to city data.
Dr Stanley Weiss, professor of epidemiology at Rutgers University, said officials needed to respond more quickly, citing a desire to redefine fully vaccinated to include booster shots, for example.
“Everyone wants us to be done with this pandemic, but in order to get out of this we cannot ignore the realities of what is happening and what is needed,” Weiss said.
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Although the schedule is about to change, Friday had a distinct feel from 2020: NFL games were postponed due to covid-19 infections. The Rockettes Christmas show has been canceled for the season.
European governments have imposed a series of restrictions that have halted ground travel and seen travelers hold themselves low.
Denmark has decided to shut down theaters, concert halls, amusement parks and museums in response to cases of the virus. In Spain, friends and classmates canceled the traditional end-of-year dinners.
Scotland and Wales on Friday pledged millions of dollars for businesses hit by Britain’s latest wave of infections, a move that pressured Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government to do so. the same in England.
Treasury Chief Rishi Sunak spoke with representatives of companies who have asked for more support, denouncing a “stealth lockdown” in which government officials recommend people reduce socialization as much as possible without formally enforcing the strict rules of past closures.
Britain has reported a record number of infections three days in a row this week, the last Friday with more than 93,000 cases.
AT RISK PARTIES
Businesses ranging from vacation providers to pubs and theaters have seen a wave of cancellations as customers decided to avoid the revelry for now rather than risk getting infected and missing family celebrations later.
Even British Christmas pantos – beloved and boisterous holiday shows – are under threat. The Belgrade Theater in Coventry, western England, had to repay $ 240,000 in ticket sales after customers decided not to attend the shows. He was also forced to cancel 12 performances of “Beauty and the Beast” because half of the cast tested positive.
“There has been a real loss of confidence,” executive director Joanna Reid told the BBC.
Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Friday that financial support for businesses must come from the central government because it has the power to borrow to finance the scale of the aid needed.
“Business is already bleeding, every 24 hours counts,” Sturgeon said at a briefing in Scotland’s capital Edinburgh. “There’s no time to lose.”
The already besieged travel and tourism industry is particularly badly hit.
Eurostar, which operates trains across the Channel, sold tickets to France on Friday before new rules restricting travel to and from Britain came into effect. Long queues meandered around the parking lot for the Eurotunnel, which runs through the tunnel that drivers use to cross the water.
Ryanair originally planned to carry around 11 million passengers in December, but that number has fallen to 10 million, chief executive Michael O’Leary told The Guardian. Europe’s largest airline will also cut around 10% of its capacity in January.
Advantage Travel Group, which represents around 350 travel agents in the UK, said its business fell 40% in mid-December compared to the previous month. These numbers, including flights, cruise bookings and package holidays, add to the current slump in the travel industry, which had already seen its activity drop by two-thirds since the start of the pandemic, a said CEO Julia Lo Bue-Said.
“Our members are dealing with clients who are really nervous about traveling now,†she said.
Many travel and hospitality professionals hoped they had left the worst behind, nearly two years after a pandemic devastated these industries. They saw this holiday season as a chance to reclaim some of what had been lost – until omicron throws a veil reminiscent of the early days of the crisis.
Richard Stevens estimates he lost $ 5,300 in reservations at his rental ski chalet in the French Alps after the announcement of new, stricter travel rules for people coming from Britain.
He lost his first reservation when a guest called to say the restrictions would not allow anyone to come to France without a compelling reason, Stevens said. “And the compelling reason does not include going on vacation.”
Celebrity chef Michel Roux and other restaurateurs have invested heavily in redesigning their places to address safety concerns – and hoped to reap some of the benefits.
Returning to a state of enormous uncertainty for a second consecutive Christmas is “like a kick in the stomach,” said Roux, who owns a destination restaurant in London.
Information for this article was provided by Ellen Francis of the Washington Post and Jennifer Peltz, Bobby Caina Calvan, Kelvin Chan, Danica Kirka, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Mae Anderson, Aritz Parra, Barry Hatton, and Sylvia Hui of The Associated Press.
