Happy Nice Mall

Health officials said on Tuesday that the heavily mutated novel coronavirus variant was in Europe a few days earlier than previously known, with the number of countries in which it has been found has risen to at least 20, raising questions about whether the pandemic is about to escalate once again.

The Dutch National Institute of Public Health and the Environment said samples were taken on November 19 and November 23 – before Omicron’s presence was announced on November 24. tested positive for the variant. Health officials have notified the two infected people and are contact tracing to try to limit the spread.

mutations Omicron variant Scientists strongly suggest that the virus is more contagious than its previous forms. They warn they won’t be sure without more testing and data, but the evidence so far is sober.

Late Tuesday night, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it plans to toughen coronavirus testing and screening for people flying into the United States by requiring all international passengers to test negative within 24 hours of departure.

“As the CDC learns more about the omicron variant, it is working to change the current global testing order for travel,” said Jason McDonald, an agency spokesperson.

The concern is that current rules that allow fully vaccinated people to test up to three days before boarding a plane to the United States may not be strict enough.

One day after warning that the risk from Omicron was “too high”, the World Health Organization said Tuesday that people over 60 who are unvaccinated, sick, or with underlying health risks “should be advised to delay travel.” In Greece, the prime minister announced that Covid vaccines will be mandatory for people aged 60 and over, and those who fail to get their first vaccine by January 16 will be fined.

In South Africa, where the variant was first announced and is already widespread, cases of the novel coronavirus have reportedly skyrocketed from around 300 per day in mid-November to about 3,000 per day, the fastest rate of increase in the world. On two flights from South Africa to the Netherlands on Friday, just as a series of travel bans from South Africa were announced, 61 passengers tested positive for the virus, at least 14 for Omicron.

In addition to the question of Omicron’s contagion, scientists still don’t have other answers the world is clamoring for: Are vaccines less effective against it? The treatments? Does Omicron cause more serious diseases?

Experts cautioned against putting too much stock in reports that the variant only causes mild disease as data is still sparse. Early evidence from South Africa suggests that Omicron is infecting people already infected with Covid-19, more than previous variants, but this requires stringent testing.

The leading infectious disease specialist in the USA, Dr. “Two to four weeks, probably a little sooner,” Anthony S. Fauci said at a briefing at the White House on Tuesday.

As of Tuesday evening, no cases of Omicron have been reported in the United States, although the variant has been detected in Canada. US officials say it’s only a matter of time and the goal should be to slow its spread.

Brazilian media reported on Tuesday that the variant originated in Brazil; that means it’s already on every continent except Antarctica.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention weekly sequences the genomes of 80,000 coronavirus samples, about one-seventh of all positive PCR laboratory tests in the country, and the agency’s director, Dr. Rochelle will speed up checks on inbound international passengers. P. Wollensky said at the White House.

The variant has a large number of mutations not seen in combination before, about 50, including more than 30 in the “spike” protein it uses to attach to host cells; spike is the primary target of vaccines. This high degree of mutation is behind the fears about Omicron and the uncertainty about whether these fears are exaggerated.

Several times before, countries have loosened their guards thinking the worst of the pandemic is behind them, but have been overwhelmed by another wave – most recently caused by the highly contagious Delta variant.

Vaccine makers are trying to rearrange their shots to address Omicron, a step that isn’t necessary to fight Delta.

Regeneron, the maker of an effective, injected monoclonal antibody therapy for Covid, said on Tuesday. it may not work very well against Omicron. A US Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Tuesday recommended approval of an oral therapy to reduce the severity of Covid, made by Merck, and will soon consider another from Pfizer.

In previous waves of the pandemic, when the first cases of the virus or of a particular variant were detected, there was actually much more and it was already widespread.

But the world’s vaccine supply went primarily to the richest countries, with many people getting three shots without the vast majority of Africans even getting a vaccine. As long as many people are unvaccinated, the pandemic will continue and new variants will emerge.

“Vaccination equality is not charity; WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday at the start of a conference aimed at producing an international agreement to coordinate response to the disease.

“It is time for countries to agree on a common, binding approach to a common threat that we cannot fully control or prevent,” he said.

In fact vaccine doses are becoming more plentiful, but African countries still face challenges in distribution and overcoming vaccine hesitancy. South Africa recently rejected a submission, not sure if he can use the doses on time.

The new variant was first found on 11 November in Botswana and days later in neighboring South Africa, and its genome was sequenced by the scientists who announced its existence two weeks later. Researchers in South Africa found this in samples dating back to Nov. 9, and experts said further testing of older samples could indicate it was likely in circulation sooner.

In Europe, the number of confirmed cases is below 100 so far, but authorities are preparing for more.

“Is there a possibility of social contagion?” British Health Minister Sajid Javid said at a press conference: “I think we need to be realistic: It’s likely to happen as we’ve seen in other European countries. Now we would expect the cases to increase as we actively search for cases.”

For a continent in the grip of its biggest wave of pandemics yet, the timing is bleak, forcing governments to drastically reduce their plans to stay open for the holidays.

European countries are reporting more than two million new coronavirus cases each week, more than half of the world’s total, even though deaths have decreased from a year ago with vaccines and improved treatments. Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Denmark and Norway set new case records last week; others reached new heights in early November.

Governments in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere have recently banned entry to people – usually except their own residents – in South Africa and several neighboring countries.

But the experience of two flights that landed in Amsterdam from South Africa on Friday night shows just how late such measures can be.

With the entry into force of the travel ban, all passengers were tested and one out of 10 people was infected with the virus; No one can guess how many other infected passengers went undetected.

Not only did 14 of the travelers from South Africa have the Omicron variant, this variant was not yet known to the world, but they also had several different versions, the Dutch public health institute said.

“This means that people are very likely infected independently of one another, from different sources and from different places,” he said.

Contributed by reporting Cora Engelbrecht, Noah Weiland, Rebecca Robbins, Carl Zimmer, Megan Special, Mark Landler, Michael D. Scissors and Sheryl Gay Stolberg