SOURCE: Al Jazeera and News Agen­cies

The US is mov­ing to re­quire that all air trav­ellers en­ter­ing the coun­try show a neg­a­tive COVID-19 test per­formed with­in one day of de­par­ture in re­sponse to con­cerns about the new Omi­cron vari­ant, the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) said.

Cur­rent­ly, vac­ci­nat­ed in­ter­na­tion­al air trav­ellers can present a neg­a­tive test re­sult ob­tained with­in three days from their point of de­par­ture. Near­ly all for­eign na­tion­als must be vac­ci­nat­ed to en­ter the Unit­ed States. Un­vac­ci­nat­ed trav­ellers cur­rent­ly must get a neg­a­tive COVID-19 test with­in one day of ar­rival.

The new one-day test­ing re­quire­ment would ap­ply equal­ly to US cit­i­zens as well as for­eign na­tion­als.

Clos­ing bor­ders not the ‘an­swer’, WHO’s Nicksy Gumede-Moelet­si says

Dr Nicksy Gumede-Moeletsi, Regional Virologist, WHO Regional Office for Africa. (Image courtesy WHO Africa)

Dr Nicksy Gumede-Moelet­si of WHO Africa said they’re try­ing to warn oth­er coun­tries of the “emer­gency that might be com­ing through”, adding that shut­ting down bor­ders is not the an­swer.

“Those coun­tries, they’re go­ing to … try their lev­el best to get pre­pared,” she said.

“But clos­ing the bor­ders or ban­ning cer­tain coun­tries from en­ter­ing – I don’t think is the an­swer.”

‘If you’re not vac­ci­nat­ed, get vac­ci­nat­ed’: An­tho­ny Fau­ci

Dr An­tho­ny Fau­ci, the US’s top in­fec­tious dis­ease of­fi­cial, has urged those who are not vac­ci­nat­ed to get the jab, and those who are, to seek a boost­er shot.

“If you’re not vac­ci­nat­ed, get vac­ci­nat­ed,” Fau­ci said. “Get boost­ed if you are vac­ci­nat­ed,” he added.

He al­so called on peo­ple to con­tin­ue to use the “mit­i­ga­tion meth­ods”, such as wear­ing “masks, avoid­ing crowds and poor­ly ven­ti­lat­ed spaces”.

“Choose out­doors rather than in­doors, keep your dis­tance, wash your hands, test and iso­late if ap­pro­pri­ate,” he added.

US pan­el backs first-of-a-kind COVID-19 pill

COVID-19 treatment pill, molnupiravir, has got a narrow approval from scientists [File: Reuters]

A pan­el of US health ad­vis­ers nar­row­ly backed a close­ly watched COVID-19 pill from Mer­ck, set­ting the stage for a like­ly au­tho­ri­sa­tion of the first drug that Amer­i­cans could take at home to treat the coro­n­avirus.

The Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FDA) pan­el vot­ed 13-10 that the an­tivi­ral drug mol­nupi­ravir’s ben­e­fits out­weigh its risks, in­clud­ing po­ten­tial birth de­fects if used dur­ing preg­nan­cy.

“I see this as an in­cred­i­bly dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion with many more ques­tions than an­swers,” said pan­el chair Dr Lind­sey Baden of Har­vard Med­ical School, who vot­ed in favour of the drug. He said the FDA would have to care­ful­ly tai­lor the drug’s use for pa­tients who stand to ben­e­fit most.

Mol­nupi­ravir has al­ready been au­tho­rised for use in the Unit­ed King­dom.

UK urges peo­ple to book boost­er shots as Omi­cron cas­es grow

Pedestrians wearing face masks against the coronavirus walk along Regent Street in London [Alastair Grant/AP Photo]

British Health Sec­re­tary Sajid Javid urged peo­ple to book a COVID-19 boost­er shot as he said there were 22 con­firmed cas­es of the Omi­cron virus vari­ant in the coun­try.

Javid said the gov­ern­ment be­lieved a boost­er cam­paign would help pro­tect against se­vere dis­ease from Omi­cron, even if it turns out that vac­cines are not as ef­fec­tive against the vari­ant as pre­vi­ous strains of the dis­ease.

Britain plans to of­fer all adults a COVID-19 boost­er shot by the end of Jan­u­ary. Gov­ern­ment da­ta shows 81 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion aged over 12 have had two dos­es of the vac­cine while 32 per­cent have had a boost­er shot or third dose.

“Our best form of de­fence still re­mains our vac­cines,” Javid said. “It’s pos­si­ble of course, it’s pos­si­ble that it might be less ef­fec­tive. We just don’t know for sure yet. But it’s al­so very like­ly that it will re­main ef­fec­tive against se­ri­ous dis­ease.”

Pedes­tri­ans wear­ing face masks against the coro­n­avirus walk along Re­gent Street in Lon­don [Alas­tair Grant/AP Pho­to]

EU push­es for dai­ly trav­el re­views, mass boost­er shots over Omi­cron

Image via Ursula von der Leyen Twitter.

The Eu­ro­pean Union needs dai­ly re­views of its trav­el re­stric­tions and rapid de­ploy­ment of vac­cine boost­er dos­es to lim­it en­try and pro­tect its cit­i­zens from the Omi­cron vari­ant, the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion said.

Eu­rope is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a surge of COVID-19 cas­es and a grow­ing num­ber of in­fec­tions by the Omi­cron vari­ant.

“We are now fac­ing a dou­ble chal­lenge in the fight against COVID-19,” Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion Pres­i­dent Ur­su­la von der Leyen said in a tweet. “The rapid resur­gence of Delta across Eu­rope and a new vari­ant of con­cern: Omi­cron.”

EU launch of Pfiz­er/BioN­Tech COVID shot for younger chil­dren brought for­ward to Dec 13

The Eu­ro­pean Union-wide roll-out of Pfiz­er and BioN­Tech’s COVID-19 vac­cine ver­sion for five- to 11-year-old chil­dren will be­gin De­cem­ber 13, one week ear­li­er than pre­vi­ous­ly planned, Ger­many’s health min­istry said.

Ger­many is due to re­ceive 2.4 mil­lion dos­es for use as a two-dose reg­i­men, the min­istry said, adding it has com­mit­ment on the new date from the man­u­fac­tur­er.

“Giv­en the cur­rent pan­dem­ic sit­u­a­tion, this is good news for par­ents and chil­dren. Many are await­ing this ea­ger­ly,” act­ing health min­is­ter Jens Spahn said in the state­ment.

First two cas­es of Omi­cron vari­ant de­tect­ed in Brazil

The first two cas­es of the Omi­cron vari­ant were de­tect­ed in Brazil, which could al­so be the first cas­es in Latin Amer­i­ca.

Sam­ples from two Brazil­ians who test­ed pos­i­tive for the vari­ant through the renowned Al­bert Ein­stein Hos­pi­tal would be sent for con­fir­ma­to­ry lab­o­ra­to­ry analy­sis, a state­ment from Brazil’s health sur­veil­lance agency An­visa said.

Ac­cord­ing to the news por­tal G1, the cas­es in­volve Brazil­ian mis­sion­ar­ies liv­ing in South Africa.