Of­fi­cials say the emer­gence of the Omi­cron vari­ant has un­der­lined the need for vac­ci­na­tion against the coro­n­avirus.

Hin­du Pun­dit Satyanand Ma­haraj, leader of the Satya Anand Ashram in Aranguez, is once again mak­ing a call for vac­ci­na­tion against COVID-19 to be made manda­to­ry.  This time, he has penned a let­ter to the Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, ask­ing that his ad­min­is­tra­tion make the move to manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tions, “now”.

GENE­VA (AP) — The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion on Mon­day is push­ing for an in­ter­na­tion­al ac­cord to help pre­vent and fight fu­ture pan­demics amid the emer­gence of a wor­ry­ing new omi­cron COVID-19 vari­ant.

The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion is dis­cussing pan­dem­ic pre­pared­ness and re­sponse in a three-day spe­cial ses­sion, as con­cerns grow.

LON­DON (AP) — South African sci­en­tists iden­ti­fied a new ver­sion of the coro­n­avirus that they say is be­hind a re­cent spike in COVID-19 in­fec­tions in Gaut­eng, the coun­try’s most pop­u­lous province.

■ The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion names new coro­n­avirus vari­ant Omi­cron and des­ig­nates it as a ‘vari­ant of con­cern’ ■

● Vac­ci­na­tion and con­tin­ued pub­lic health mea­sures cru­cial, giv­en spikes in Eu­rope and ap­proach­ing hol­i­day sea­son ●

BRUS­SELS (AP) — A slew of na­tions moved to stop air trav­el from south­ern Africa on Fri­day, and stocks plunged in Asia and Eu­rope in re­ac­tion to news of a new, po­ten­tial­ly more trans­mis­si­ble COVID-19 vari­ant.

In a his­toric march to high­light ris­ing COVID-19 deaths, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Vic­tor Roberts is now wheel­ing a black cof­fin through the streets of Trinidad, call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to im­prove the health sec­tor.

● The dis­cov­ery of new vari­ant with a high num­ber of mu­ta­tions rais­es con­cerns about COVID-19 trans­mis­sions, trig­ger­ing trav­el re­stric­tions ●

GENE­VA (AP) — Ad­vis­ers to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion are hold­ing a spe­cial ses­sion Fri­day to flesh out in­for­ma­tion about a wor­ry­ing new vari­ant of the coro­n­avirus that has emerged in South Africa, though a top ex­pert says its im­pact on COVID-19 vac­cines may not be known for weeks.

The May­or of Ch­agua­nas is urg­ing peo­ple to get vac­ci­nat­ed against COVID-19, in or­der to help pro­tect their fam­i­lies against the dead­ly virus this Christ­mas sea­son.