Earlier Wednesday, a further 131 cases of the new Omicron COVID variant have been reported in Britain. Scientists have called on the government to take more action and are urging people to be more cautious as Omicron cases continue to rise in the country.
Britain registered 51,342 new COVID-19 infections bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 10,610,958, according to official figures released Wednesday.
The country also reported a further 161 coronavirus-related deaths. The total number of coronavirus-related deaths in Britain now stands at 145,987, with 7,317 COVID-19 patients still in hospital.
The vast majority of these infections are likely to be the Delta variant, although Omicron cases are climbing also.
A person waits outside a COVID-19 Walk In Vaccination Center in London, Britain on Dec. 6, 2021. (Xinhua/Ray Tang)
Earlier Wednesday, a further 131 cases of the new Omicron COVID variant have been reported in Britain, taking the total to 568, British health authorities confirmed.
Scientists have called on the government to take more action and are urging people to be more cautious as Omicron cases continue to rise in the country.
More than 89 percent of people aged 12 and over in Britain have had their first dose of vaccine and more than 81 percent have received both doses, according to the latest figures. More than 37 percent have received booster jabs, or the third dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States have been racing against time to roll out coronavirus vaccines.
People queue outside COVID-19 vaccine buses in London, Britain on Dec. 6, 2021. (Xinhua/Ray Tang)
Laboratory data indicate that a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine increases the neutralizing antibody titers by 25-fold compared to two doses against the Omicron variant. Therefore, two doses of the vaccine “may not be sufficient to protect against infection with the Omicron variant.”
Preliminary laboratory studies demonstrate that three doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine neutralize the Omicron variant while two doses show significantly reduced neutralization titers, the American and German vaccine developers said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
“Broad vaccination and booster campaigns around the world could help us to better protect people everywhere and to get through the winter season,” said Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech.
Laboratory data indicate that a third dose of the vaccine increases the neutralizing antibody titers by 25-fold compared to two doses against the Omicron variant, the companies said. Therefore, two doses of the vaccine “may not be sufficient to protect against infection with the Omicron variant,” they noted.
However, because most epitopes targeted by vaccine-induced T cells were not affected by the Omicron mutations, the companies believed that “vaccinated individuals may still be protected against severe forms of the disease.”
The two companies have already started adapting their vaccine to the Omicron variant and would continue this work. The vaccine could be ready by March.
Pfizer and BioNTech are planning to produce four billion doses of the current (BNT162b2) vaccine in 2022, and “this capacity is not expected to change if an adapted vaccine is required.”
Blood sera for the study were taken three weeks after people receiving the second dose or one month after receiving the third Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine dose.
The summit ended with little progress, as Russian analysts and officials had forecast, expecting that there will be “controlled confrontation” between the two sides.
Putin
No breakthrough was achieved after Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, met via video link on Tuesday, which touched upon such topics as the situation in Ukraine, the Iran nuclear deal, and bilateral ties between the two countries.
The meeting marked the second talks in six months between the two leaders, the Kremlin said in a statement after the two-hour virtual conversation.
The summit ended with little progress, as Russian analysts and officials had forecast, expecting that there will be “controlled confrontation” between the two sides.
On the situation in Ukraine, Biden threatened to take “strong economic and other measures” together with U.S. allies against Moscow should Russia invaded Ukraine as the West alleged.
In response, Putin criticized the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for shifting its responsibility onto Moscow, stressing that it is NATO that is attempting to “conquer Ukrainian territory” and is building up military potential near the Russian borders.
Putin asked Biden for a “reliable, legally fixed” guarantee that NATO will not expand in the eastern direction and not deploy offensive weapons near Russia, but Biden “made no concessions” regarding Ukraine’s possible NATO membership, according to U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
“There were no breakthroughs,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said after the summit, adding that it could take more than one year for ties to thaw since so many problems have accumulated.
“The contradictions between the countries are intractable,” said Sergei Kislitsyn, head of the Center for Strategic Planning Studies at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences.
“I can’t quite picture where there will be breakthroughs. After all, any simple moves in the framework of bilateral ties, including the extension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, have already taken place,” he said.
CONTROLLED CONFRONTATION
Although analysts did not anticipate better Russian-U.S. relations, they agree that the two countries are trying to confine confrontation to a relatively narrow range as both sides can’t afford a direct military conflict.
The Kremlin called the Putin-Biden meeting “sincere and business-like” and the presidents agreed to continue dialogue and necessary contacts.
“The very fact that the negotiations between the leaders actually took place means that Washington is still more inclined towards dialogue than confrontation,” said Andrei Kortunov, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council.
Biden needs some kind of agreements with Putin to show that he is able to resolve issues as his approval ratings are plummeting over domestic affairs in the United States, said Yuri Rogulev, director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Foundation for U.S. Studies at the Moscow State University.
Nikita Danyuk, deputy director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Predictions of RUDN University, forecast that there will be “controlled confrontation” between Russia and the United States.
Negotiations on Ukraine, strategic stability and global security will continue, but sanctions pressure will also continue with Russia being defamed, he said.
The number of Covid-19 cases crossed 14.28 million across Southeast Asia, with 26,211 new cases reported on Wednesday (December 8). New deaths are at 538, bringing accumulated Covid-19 deaths in Asean to 295,531.
Cambodia on Monday began to vaccinate five-year-old children with China’s Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine as the vaccination for the population aged six years and older was completed. Ministry of Health said five-year-old children in Cambodia will receive two doses of the Sinovac vaccine and the gap between the first and second shot is 28 days.
Meanwhile, Vietnam reported 14,599 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, including 14,595 locally transmitted and four imported, according to its Ministry of Health. Most of the community cases were reported in southern localities, including 1,475 in Ho Chi Minh City, 874 in Tay Ninh province, and 781 in Soc Trang province. As of Wednesday, the country has registered nearly 1.35 million locally transmitted Covid-19 cases since the start of the current wave in late April.
Olaf Scholz took over as chancellor of Germany and is under immediate pressure to tackle a brutal Covid-19 outbreak and a raft of geopolitical challenges including tensions with Russia.
The Social Democrat was sworn in on Wednesday, ending Angela Merkel’s 16-year tenure and becoming the country’s ninth chancellor since World War II.
The 63-year-old, Merkel’s vice chancellor for the past four years, represents renewal at the top – but not too much. Voters awarded him a narrow victory in the Sept. 26 election, seeing in him much of what they liked about Merkel – a steady hand and competent, if not charismatic, leadership.
The soft-spoken former finance minister will preside over his inaugural cabinet meeting this evening. After Merkel asserted Germany’s status as the paramount power broker in the European Union and one of the leading countries in the West, Scholz will have to learn how to apply Germany’s leverage amid threats on Europe’s eastern frontier and the ascendancy of China as a superpower.
He’ll also have to deal with mounting pressure from the U.S. over the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline connecting Russia with Germany’s north coast. The U.S. will push its European ally to agree to stop the almost-completed project if Russian President Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine, according to documents seen by Bloomberg and people familiar with the plans.
“Clearly Russia has the ability to blackmail Germany and Europe,” Marcel Fratzscher, president of Germany’s DIW economic research institute, said Wednesday in a Bloomberg TV interview. “My hunch at the moment is this pipeline will not take off, that it will be blocked permanently.”
Scholz has already demonstrated domestic political prowess, deftly assembling a government with two other parties with sharply diverging policies – the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats.
The coalition, which holds 416 of the Bundestag’s 736 seats, was forged more quickly and seamlessly than most political observers in Berlin expected. In the lower house of parliament on Wednesday, Scholz received 395 of the 707 votes cast, clearing the final hurdle.
The 177-page coalition accord bears the fingerprints of each party. The SPD secured a minimum-wage increase to 12 euros ($13.50) an hour and pension guarantees; the Greens brought the country’s coal-exit date forward to 2030; and the FDP won out on a promise not to raise taxes and to preserve constitutional debt limits.
But political fights are baked in. The Greens have vowed to push Germany to the forefront of the battle against climate change, with billions in investments to expand renewable resources on the path to carbon neutrality by 2045. The FDP has assured its base that it’ll keep government spending and debt in check.
Christian Lindner, the FDP chairman who will be Scholz’s finance minister, already sounded a warning on Tuesday, saying the government is observing inflation – or “monetary devaluation” – very closely and will factor it into fiscal decisions.
Robert Habeck, the incoming Green vice chancellor who oversees climate policy, said his party will stick to the ambitious pledges secured in the accord.
“There will be differences. There will be conflict. But we are fully aligned when it comes to goals,” Ricarda Lang, a deputy leader of the Greens, said in a Bloomberg TV interview.
The foremost challenge for the entire coalition will be tackling the pandemic. There has been an unprecedented surge in infections in recent weeks in Germany, which has lagged western European peers in vaccination rates.
Scholz has called for a national effort to administer 30 million shots by year-end in a bid to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed by Covid patients. He has also backed a general vaccine mandate that is expected to go to a vote in the lower house of parliament before the end of the year.
A onetime SPD activist and lawyer who became a staunch defender of the labor-market overhaul under Gerhard Schroeder, Scholz brushed past setbacks to become labor minister in Merkel’s first “grand” coalition with the SPD. Returning to his hometown Hamburg, he won a state election and governed the city from 2011 to 2018.
He’s now based in Potsdam outside Berlin, where he won a direct seat for the Bundestag this year. His wife, Britta Ernst, is the education minister for the eastern state of Brandenburg.
Scholz, whom many in Germany had written off as recently as the summer, staged a surprise comeback victory in the September vote. His direct opponents, CDU Chairman Armin Laschet and Greens’ Co-leader Annalena Baerbock, stumbled in their bids to win over voters.
The new ruling coalition, a formation never tried at the federal level, will have Germany’s first cabinet staffed half by women (excluding the chancellor himself).
Baerbock will be the first female foreign minister, while the SPD’s Christine Lambrecht will be defense minister. Nancy Faeser, an SPD leader from the western state of Hesse, will take over the interior ministry – another first.
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said she’s sure that Scholz and his government will “continue to work hard to advance European integration.”
“I have always admired how Angela Merkel steered Germany through many crises,” Lagarde was quoted as saying Wednesday by the Handelsblatt newspaper. “I am sure that Olaf Scholz will work just as calmly, thoroughly and in a focused way on the huge tasks that he and his government have before them.”
The World Health Organization said the omicron variant of the coronavirus may change the course of the pandemic. It called on countries to vaccinate as fast as possible and keep measures in place to protect people from infection.
“We can prevent omicron becoming a global crisis,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a briefing on Wednesday. “This virus is changing, but our collective resolve must not.”
The organization also said while there’s early evidence that omicron is milder than the delta strain, it’s too early to be definitive.
“Certain features of omicron, including its global spread and large number of mutations, suggest it could have a major impact on the course of the pandemic,” Tedros said.
Asked about a new study from Pfizer and BioNTech on how their vaccine works against omicron, Kate O’Brien, director of immunization and vaccines, said the WHO is aware and will look at the findings.
“We are still in a delta pandemic, so vaccinate with existing vaccines continues to be the top priority,” she said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Pfizer and BioNTech said initial laboratory studies show a third dose of their vaccine may be needed to neutralize the omicron variant, an analysis that will accelerate booster-shot drives around the world.
The WHO has been pushing for countries to hold off on boosters to make more vaccines available to poorer countries where inoculation rates are low. But governments may be less likely to do that if evidence from tests continues to show that third shots are needed to protect against omicron.
The variant has now spread to 57 countries, and it appears to be more transmissible than previous virus strains. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s emergencies program, said while omicron appears to have higher transmissibility than delta, “that does not mean the virus is unstoppable.”
LONDON — Britain is obsessed by a Christmas party, which either did or did not happen at 10 Downing Street last year, in the middle of a strict coronavirus lockdown, as the hospitals filled with the sick and dying.
The official spokesman for the prime minister says there was no holiday party, that no rules were broken, despite a scoop by the Mirror, a British tabloid, saying that yes, Virginia, there was a party, with guests “knocking back glasses of wine during a Christmas quiz and a Secret Santa while the rest of the country was forced to stay at home.”
Now there’s leaked video, not of the alleged party itself, but of a mock news conference staged by a communications aide to Boris Johnson, about the party, four days after the alleged festivities. That aide resigned on Wednesday.
The story has become a scandal in part because it plays into assertions that Johnson and his government cannot be trusted and that there is one set of rules for the people and another for the rulers. The British take their very merry holiday parties very seriously, and to learn that 10 Downing Street – the prime minister’s official residence and office, the British version of the White House – might have been whooping it up as the rest of the country was told to hunker down really grates.
The revelations coincided with Johnson’s announcement of new restrictions to curb the spread of the omicron variant. Starting next week, people in England are being asked to return to working from home when they can, wear face masks in public and show National Health Service passes – documenting that they’ve been vaccinated or recently tested negative – to enter nightclubs and other crowded venues.
Johnson opened a particularly boisterous session of Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday with an apology. “I understand and share the anger up and down the country at seeing Number 10 staff seeming to make light of lockdown measures, and I can understand how infuriating it must be to think that people who have been setting the rules have not been following the rules because I was also furious to see that clip,” he said.
But the prime minister added that he had been “repeatedly assured” that there was no party and that no covid rules had been broken.
He announced that he had asked his cabinet secretary to investigate and promised, “It goes without saying that if those rules were broken, then there will be disciplinary action for all those involved.”
That hardly settled the matter.
Douglas Ross, a leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, suggested that if Johnson was misleading Parliament, he should resign. “If the prime minister knew about this party last December, knew about this party last week, and was still denying it, then that is the most serious allegation,” Ross said.
The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer, told the prime minister his apology “raises more questions than answers.”
Starmer charged that “millions of people” who followed the rules last Christmas “now think the prime minister was taking them for fools, that they were lied to.”
The Labour lawmaker said Johnson’s staff, “knew there was a party, they knew it was against the rules, they knew they couldn’t admit it, and they thought it was funny. It is obvious what happened.”
Johnson’s critics hammered away on their assertion that 10 Downing Street was partying while ordinary people were denied visits to nursing homes and to see sick relatives in hospitals.
“It’s one rule for them and another for the rest of us,” David Lammy, the Labour Party’s point person on foreign affairs, told the BBC on Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Sajid Javid canceled a scheduled BBC appearance after the video footage was leaked.
Javid would have been expected to mark the anniversary of Britain becoming the first country in the West to administer coronavirus vaccines outside of clinical trials. He also would have been expected to urge people to get their initial vaccinations or booster shots, amid concerns about the new omicron variant.
The Christmas party affair has attracted the attention of London’s Metropolitan Police, which is reviewing the footage in relation to “alleged breaches” of covid-19 regulations at the time.
On Dec. 18, 2020, a Friday, the day many British media outlets have been claiming the party took place, gatherings in London were banned. The official guidance stated, “You must not have a work Christmas lunch or party where that is a primarily social activity.”
The following day, Johnson announced a further tightening of rules, effectively canceling Christmas for millions.
Thousands of people were fined for violations on gatherings over the course of last year, according to figures from the National Police Chiefs’ Council and reported by the BBC. Between March 2020 and January 2021, police issued 2,982 fines in England to those participating in gatherings inside a house or indoor space; there were 250 fines issued in England to those hosting a gathering of more than 30 people.
The leaked video clip, obtained by ITV news, shows a mock news conference staged by Allegra Stratton, then a top spokesperson for the prime minister, answering questions lobbed at her by fellow staffers, in a practice round as they prepared for the real deal.
The clip is not definitive proof, but it is damning – as it appears to suggest that staffers knew all about the party and were cracking jokes about it.
Asked whether there was such a fete, Stratton replies in the clip: “This fictional party was a business meeting – and it was not socially distanced.”
Pressed for an answer in the rehearsal by Johnson’s top aide, who was playing the role of a journalist, Stratton says, “I went home.” Everyone laughs.
Asked whether the prime minister would condone such a party, Stratton asks the room: “What’s the answer?”
Finally, another aide jokes that “it wasn’t a party; it was cheese and wine” and Stratton laughs and asks: “Is cheese and wine all right?”
Late on Wednesday, Stratton gave a tearful statement as she resigned from the government. Most recently, she was in charge of publicity for the global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, last month.
“My remarks seemed to make light of the rules, rules that everyone were doing everything to obey. That was never my intention. I will regret those remarks for the rest of my days,” Stratton said. “I understand the anger and frustration that people feel. To all of you who lost loved ones and endured intolerable loneliness and who struggled with your businesses, I am truly sorry.”
The images from the mock news conference were plastered across the British papers on Wednesday.
“A Sick Joke” ran a front-page headline in the Daily Mail; the Metro newspaper scolded the “No. 10 Party Clowns.”
“It’s disgusting,” Rivka Gottlieb, who lost her father in the first lockdown, told the BBC. “It shows the utter contempt they hold the British public in,” she said.
During the first lockdown, in 2020, Dominic Cummings, then Johnson’s top aide, flouted strict rules and damaged public trust in the government’s handling of the pandemic. He drove six hours north, to shelter at his family farm, after he and his wife were infected with the virus. Later, he drove to a nearby castle, known for sightseeing, to test his eyesight, he claimed.
Cummings weighed in on Twitter on Wednesday, suggesting that the internal inquiry the prime minister ordered also look at parties held at Johnson’s apartment, including on the day Cummings was forced out.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) on Wednesday held a ceremony to celebrate the first non-stop international flight from Sydney’s Kingsford Smith International Airport to Phuket International Airport.
“The first inaugural flight, TG 478 of Thai Airways International [THAI], landed in Phuket on Tuesday afternoon,” said Thanes Phetsuwan, TAT deputy governor of marketing – Asia and South Pacific.
“Travellers from Australia can conveniently fly to Phuket three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. The flights depart Sydney at 9.30am and reach Phuket at 2.40pm.”
To celebrate the Sydney-Phuket non-stop flight, TAT provided an Amazing Thailand gift set and a certificate to each passenger on Tuesday. It also organised a cultural performance at the airport.
“TAT estimates the non-stop flights will bring in about 90-140 passengers per flight during the high season of December and January,” Thanes said. “Moreover, THAI recently increased its Sydney-Bangkok-Sydney flights from three to four times a week on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. It also plans to introduce Melbourne-Bangkok-Melbourne flights in January,” he added.
Australia is among 63 countries/territories from which travellers can enter Thailand without having to quarantine under the Test & Go campaign. Eligible visitors must have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 at least 14 days before arrival and stay at a SHA Plus certified hotel for one night while awaiting the result of a RT-PCR test, administered upon arrival.
From November 1 to December 6, 729 tourists from Australia landed in Phuket under the Phuket Sandbox programme, placing the country 13th among nations from which tourists had arrived as part of the scheme.
The Omicron variant will create natural herd immunity in one or two months if it is not severe, Vichaiyut Hospital respiratory specialist Dr Manoon Leechawengwongs wrote on his Facebook page.
The post said the variant has now spread to more than 50 countries in one month. Thailand has already found three Omicron cases.
Omicron can spread twice as quickly as the Delta variant and two doses of current vaccinations are unlikely to provide immunity against it.
However, the latest Covid-19 variant is thought to be less severe than Delta, according to available information from Africa. African patients have shown few symptoms such as a cold, sore throat, runny nose, coughing, sneezing, tiredness, headache and body ache. And there have been no reports so far of Omicron causing any deaths.
Manoon expects the variant to spread rapidly worldwide in two or three months. It will be good news if it is not severe, he wrote, adding that it will then create herd immunity and make Covid-19 become endemic.
Manoon said Thais should not worry about Omicron too much. But he urged people to be cautious by wearing masks, keeping a distance from others, washing hands, avoiding closed or crowded places, and getting fully vaccinated.
The Covid-19 Omicron variant may likely be less severe than Delta, expert virologist Dr Yong Poovorawan wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday.
Yong pointed out that the Delta variant was found in 99 per cent of cases across the globe.
He also said the world was now seeing the seasonal H1N1 flu before the 2009 H1N1 flu spread.
Yong said the Delta variant would of course be replaced by Omicron if the latter spreads more easily.
Outside Africa, about half of the total patients in the UK, Norway and Denmark have shown no symptoms, while the other half have seen a small number of symptoms when compared to the Delta variant, he wrote.
Meanwhile, the number of Omicron patients requiring hospitalisation in southern Africa is so far less than the Delta variant.
Yong also said it would be good news if Omicron was “truly not severe”. If the disease is not severe and spreads to a large number of people, it will create herd immunity. The need for vaccines will be reduced, especially for people who have been infected before, and vaccine buyers will have the upper hand.
Present information about the severity of Omicron might take some time to prove, he added.
A person waits outside a COVID-19 Walk In Vaccination Center in London, Britain on Dec. 6, 2021. (Xinhua/Ray Tang)
People queue outside COVID-19 vaccine buses in London, Britain on Dec. 6, 2021. (Xinhua/Ray Tang)
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