COVID-19: Omicron cases surge by up to 400% in South Africa - but vaccine effectiveness 'encouraging' - Sky News

Omicron coronavirus cases have surged by as much as 400% in some parts of South Africa - although the country's health ministry has said there is mounting evidence the variant causes milder infection.

South Africa reported more than 22,000 new infections on Thursday, a record during the fourth wave but still below the more than 26,000 daily cases seen during the peak of the Delta variant.

Health Minister Joe Phaahla said Gauteng Province had seen a "very significant" increase in COVID-19 cases of "more than 400%" in the week of 4 December 2021 compared to the previous seven days - with hospital admissions up by 200%.

COVID news live: Omicron is 'ultimate lose-lose situation'

Image: South African Health Minister, Joe Phaahla, warns that the new variant is driving a spike in numbers.

He added the Omicron strain had fuelled the surge and said: "While there is an increasing rate of hospitalisations, it may be due to overall big numbers of infections.

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"It looks like it is purely because of the numbers rather than as a result of any severity of the variant itself."

Of those admitted to hospital, 70% were unvaccinated - however, it is worth noting South Africa has a relatively low rate of vaccination, with just over 25% of the population fully jabbed.

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By comparison in the UK, 81% of adults have had both doses of a vaccine.

Glenda Gray, president of the South African Medical Research Council, said: "We are seeing this vaccine is maintaining effectiveness.

"It may be slightly reduced, but we are seeing effectiveness being maintained for hospital admissions and that is very encouraging."

Young people in South Africa aged 18 to 35 have the lowest rate of vaccination in the country - with less than 30% having had jabs.

"The young adults are not coming up in good numbers and we want to urge them to not listen to what they read on social media, all the anti-vax stories," said Mr Phaahla.

He said figures showed that "those who are vaccinated are much better protected".

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South Africa will offer booster doses of the Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines to people six months after they receive their second dose, with the first people becoming eligible next month.

Although early information does appear to suggest the Omicron variant results in less severe disease, it also seems to be far more transmissible than the Delta strain.

Mr Phaahla said the R rate in South Africa now stands at 2.5: "Which is higher than it was at any point in the pandemic."

The R number indicates the average number of people each COVID-positive person goes on to infect.

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'Reinfection increase with Omicron worries us'

An R number of 2.5 means every 10 infected people will, on average, pass the virus on 25 others.

The new variant was first detected by researchers in Southern Africa at the end of November.

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2021-12-10 11:25:13Z
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Mexico truck crash: At least 54 people killed as trailer overturns - BBC News

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At least 54 people have been killed and scores more injured after the truck they were being transported in crashed in southern Mexico, authorities say.

More than 150 people, said to be migrants from Central America, were crammed into the truck's trailer when it rolled in the state of Chiapas.

One resident heard a man implore his badly hurt companion: "Remember what you promised your mother! Hold on."

Pictures show victims strewn across the road next to the overturned truck.

Sabina Lopez, who lives nearby and ran to the scene after the crash, told the AFP news agency that she saw dozens of people screaming in pain, some trapped in the wreckage and others unconscious.

"It was horrible to hear the wailing. I just thought about helping," Ms Lopez, 18, told AFP.

She said the impact of the crash had broken the container in half and ripped off its roof.

Isaias Diaz arrived 15 minutes after the crash and helped paramedics with those people showing signs of life.

"I saw five, six children who were clearly injured. People with broken legs, ribs, [injured] heads, cuts on their necks," he told AFP.

"The crying, the pain, the despair. It was a terrible scene," he added.

Residents offered crash survivors water and mobile phones to contact relatives. They also said the driver and a person with him appeared injured, but then fled.

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It is one of the worst accidents of its kind in Mexico. Forty-nine people were confirmed dead at the scene and five more died in hospital, Chiapas Governor Rutilio Escandón said.

Some 105 people - 83 men and 22 women - were also injured in the crash, he said.

Emergency officials said the victims included men, women and children. Their nationalities have not been confirmed, but local officials said most of the people on board were from Honduras and Guatemala.

The truck was reportedly speeding when it flipped on a sharp bend and hit a pedestrian bridge on a main road leading to the Chiapas state capital, Tuxtla Gutiérrez.

Chiapas, which neighbours Guatemala, is a major transit point for undocumented migrants.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America try to cross through Mexico each year in a bid to reach the US.

Many of them pay smugglers, who illegally transport them in crowded and dangerous trucks on the long journey.

The US-Mexico border is the deadliest single crossing in the world according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This year alone, at least 650 people have died trying to cross the border - more than in any other year since IOM's records began.

There are also many deaths on the perilous journey towards the border, however these are harder to accurately document, the IOM said in a statement.

Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador described the crash as "very painful" and wrote on Twitter that he "deeply regrets the tragedy".

Last month, a migrant caravan heading through Chiapas found that the local authorities had clamped down so hard on people providing lifts to migrants, they effectively had to undertake the entire journey on foot.

That meant carrying their children in their arms in the blistering heat and torrential downpours of southern Mexico's rural states.

It's a tactic employed by the government to try to break the migrants' will, to see if any will give up and turn back or accept asylum conditions in Mexico.

Throughout it all, trucks have continued to transport thousands of migrants right under the noses - or with the complicity - of the state authorities.

Their trailers filled with scores of families standing in cramped and unsafe conditions for hours, it's a wonder such accidents aren't more frequent.

Often the biggest danger to the migrants is from suffocation as the people-smugglers fail to provide sufficient ventilation or hydration for the trip.

Yet most of those in this horrific accident came from Central America and will have been escaping economic ruin, the effects of severe weather from climate change on their livelihoods or gang violence. Or some combination of all of these factors.

With that in mind, many thousands more will continue to consider the dangers of the road to be a risk worth taking to flee the unbearable conditions at home.

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2021-12-10 11:13:13Z
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People 90% less likely to die with Covid after booster jab - Metro.co.uk

Researchers studied around 850,000 people in Israel (Picture: Rex/PA)

People who have had a booster jab are 90% less likely to die with Covid-19 than those who had just two shots, according to a huge new study.

Researchers looked at nearly 850,000 vaccinated people aged 50 and over in Israel who had been given a second Pfizer jab at least five months earlier.

It found that an average of just 0.16 boosted people died per 100,000 per day (some 65 people among nearly three quarters of a million).

That compares to 2.98 in the double-jabbed group (137 out of roughly 85,000) – a rate that is still far, far lower than in unvaccinated people who get infected.

More than 750,000 of the participants received their third jab in the 54-day research period, the study in the New England Journal of Medicine said.

The authors wrote: ‘Participants who received a booster at least 5 months after a second dose of BNT162b2 had 90% lower mortality due to Covid-19 than participants who did not receive a booster.’

But the study refers to the Delta variant and it is unclear what impact Omicron will have on its validity.

1,000,000 invited to Downing Street 'rave' as anger rises over Christmas party

Scientists believe waning immunity could make people increasingly vulnerable to the virus as more time elapsing from when they last had a jab.

The UK is currently rolling out third jabs, which the government hopes will protect people from serious illness and the NHS from being overwhelmed.

Meanwhile, Pfizer announced that three doses of its coronavirus vaccine does appear to neutralise the new Omicron strain.

Alongside partners BioNTech, it said preliminary studies showed that Omicron can infect double-jabbed people but that two doses will provide good protection against severe disease because the body uses a range of immune cells, including T cells, for protection.

And when it comes to boosters, three doses of the vaccine increased neutralising antibody titers against Omicron in people’s blood 25-fold compared with two doses.

More: Coronavirus

Experts said that showed that booster doses should offer good protection against Omicron.

Laboratory studies showed that the antibody levels reached with three doses of the vaccine were just as good as for two doses against the original Wuhan strain of the virus, which have already been shown to offer high levels of protection.

In a statement, Pfizer and BioNTech said that two doses may still induce protection against severe disease, although people may still get infected.

But the companies said the two doses ‘may not be sufficient to protect against infection with the Omicron variant’.

‘However, as the vast majority of epitopes targeted by vaccine-induced T cells are not affected by the mutations in Omicron, the companies believe that vaccinated individuals may still be protected against severe forms of the disease, and are closely monitoring real-world effectiveness against Omicron, globally’, the firms added.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

MORE : Omicron surges as UK cases jump 90% in a day

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2021-12-09 17:00:00Z
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New Zealand to ban cigarettes for future generations - BBC News

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New Zealand will ban the sale of tobacco to its next generation, in a bid to eventually phase out smoking.

Anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime, under a law expected to be enacted next year.

"We want to make sure young people never start smoking," Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verall said.

The move is part of a sweeping crackdown on smoking announced by New Zealand's health ministry on Thursday.

Doctors and other health experts in the country have welcomed the "world-leading" reforms, which will reduce access to tobacco and restrict nicotine levels in cigarettes.

"It will help people quit or switch to less harmful products, and make it much less likely that young people get addicted to nicotine," said Prof Janet Hook from the University of Otago.

The crackdown has been met with mixed reactions.

"I reckon it's a good move, really," one man told Reuters news agency. "Because right now there's a lot of young kids walking around with smokes in their mouth. Public are asking how they're getting these smokes.

"And it's also good for myself too because I can save more money."

However, others have warned that the move may create a black market for tobacco - something the health ministry's official impact statement does acknowledge, noting "customs will need more resource to enforce border control".

"This is all 100% theory and 0% substance," Sunny Kaushal, chairman of the Dairy and Business Owners Group, a lobby group for local convenience stores, told New Zealand's Stuff news site. "There's going to be a crime wave. Gangs and criminals will fill the gap".

• Dog sniffs out hole in a wall cigarette stash
• Smoking surge in young during Covid lockdown

New Zealand is determined to achieve a national goal of reducing its national smoking rate to 5% by 2025, with the aim of eventually eliminating it altogether.

At the moment, 13% of New Zealand's adults smoke, with the rate much higher among the indigenous Maori population, where it soars to almost a third. Maori also suffer a higher rate of disease and death.

New Zealand's health ministry says smoking causes one in four cancers and remains the leading cause of preventable death for its five million strong population. The industry has been the target of legislators for more than a decade now.

As part of the crackdown announced on Thursday, the government also introduced major tobacco controls, including significantly restricting where cigarettes can be sold to remove them from supermarkets and corner stores.

The number of shops authorised to sell cigarettes will be drastically reduced to under 500 from about 8,000 now, officials say.

In recent years, vaping - smoking e-cigarettes which produce a vapour that also delivers nicotine - has become far more popular among younger generations than cigarettes.

New Zealand health authorities warn however, that vaping is not harmless. Researchers have found hazardous, cancer-causing agents in e-cigarette liquids as well.

But in 2017 the country adopted vaping as a pathway to help smokers quit tobacco.

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2021-12-09 10:52:32Z
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New Zealand to ban cigarettes for future generations - BBC News

Getty Images

New Zealand will ban the sale of tobacco to its next generation, in a bid to eventually phase out smoking.

Anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime, under a law expected to be enacted next year.

"We want to make sure young people never start smoking," Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verall said.

The move is part of a sweeping crackdown on smoking announced by New Zealand's health ministry on Thursday.

Doctors and other health experts in the country have welcomed the "world-leading" reforms, which will reduce access to tobacco and restrict nicotine levels in cigarettes.

"It will help people quit or switch to less harmful products, and make it much less likely that young people get addicted to nicotine," said Prof Janet Hook from the University of Otago.

However, others have warned that the move may create a black market for tobacco - something the health ministry's official impact statement does acknowledge, noting "customs will need more resource to enforce border control".

New Zealand is determined to achieve a national goal of reducing its national smoking rate to 5% by 2025, with the aim of eventually eliminating it altogether.

At the moment, 13% of New Zealand's adults smoke, with the rate much higher among the indigenous Maori population, where it soars to almost a third. Maori also suffer a higher rate of disease and death.

• Dog sniffs out hole in a wall cigarette stash
• Smoking surge in young during Covid lockdown

New Zealand's health ministry says smoking causes one in four cancers and remains the leading cause of preventable death for its five million strong population. The industry has been the target of legislators for more than a decade now.

As part of the crackdown announced on Thursday, the government also introduced major tobacco controls, including significantly restricting where cigarettes can be sold to remove them from supermarkets and corner stores.

The number of shops authorised to sell cigarettes will be drastically reduced to under 500 from about 8,000 now, officials say.

In recent years, vaping - smoking e-cigarettes which produce a vapour that also delivers nicotine - has become far more popular among younger generations than cigarettes.

New Zealand health authorities warn however, that vaping is not harmless. Researchers have found hazardous, cancer-causing agents in e-cigarette liquids as well.

But in 2017 the country adopted vaping as a pathway to help smokers quit tobacco.

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2021-12-09 09:52:23Z
1196315745

New Zealand to ban cigarettes for future generations - BBC News

Getty Images

New Zealand will ban the sale of tobacco to its next generation, in a bid to eventually phase out smoking.

Anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime, under a law expected to be enacted next year.

"We want to make sure young people never start smoking," Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verall said.

The move is part of a sweeping crackdown on smoking announced by New Zealand's health ministry on Thursday.

Doctors and other health experts in the country have welcomed the "world-leading" reforms which will reduce access to tobacco and restrict nicotine levels in cigarettes.

"It will help people quit or switch to less harmful products, and make it much less likely that young people get addicted to nicotine," said Prof Janet Hook from the University of Otago.

New Zealand is determined to achieve a national goal of reducing its national smoking rate to 5% by 2025, with the aim of eventually eliminating it altogether.

Currently, about 13% of New Zealand adults smoke, down from 18% about a decade ago. But the rate is much higher - about 31%- among the indigenous Maori population who also suffer a higher rate of disease and death.

• Dog sniffs out hole in a wall cigarette stash
• Smoking surge in young during Covid lockdown

New Zealand's health ministry says smoking causes one in four cancers and remains the leading cause of preventable death for its five million strong population. The industry has been the target of legislators for more than a decade now.

As part of the crackdown announced on Thursday, the government also introduced major tobacco controls, including significantly restricting where cigarettes can be sold to remove them from supermarkets and corner stores.

The number of shops authorised to sell cigarettes will be drastically reduced to under 500 from about 8,000 now, officials say.

In recent years, vaping - smoking e-cigarettes which produce a vapour that also delivers nicotine - has become far more popular among younger generations than cigarettes.

New Zealand health authorities warn however, that vaping is not harmless. Researchers have found hazardous, cancer-causing agents in e-cigarette liquids as well.

But in 2017 the country adopted vaping as a pathway to help smokers quit tobacco.

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2021-12-09 04:32:02Z
1196315745

Joe Biden makes diplomatic concession to Russia with Nato talks plan - Financial Times

Joe Biden has made a significant diplomatic concession to Moscow designed to prevent an invasion of Ukraine, signalling he wants to convene meetings between Nato allies and Russia to discuss Vladimir Putin’s grievances with the transatlantic security pact.

Speaking on Wednesday, a day after he held a bilateral call with Russia’s leader, the US president said he hoped to announce high-level talks by Friday “to discuss the future of Russia’s concerns relative to Nato writ large”.

The talks would explore “whether or not we can work out any accommodation as it relates to bringing down the temperature along the eastern front”, Biden added.

The US president said he hoped the participants would include not just Washington and Moscow but also “at least four of our major Nato allies”, although he declined to name the specific countries.

Moscow wants Nato to commit to halting any eastward expansion and to refrain from deploying troops and equipment that could be used to attack Russia from neighbouring countries.

But Biden’s reference to finding a potential “accommodation” with Moscow in eastern Europe will startle many eastern Nato members and US allies, who fear Putin is using the threat of military force to win concessions on the US security presence in Europe.

Putin on Wednesday reiterated his fear that Ukraine will join Nato, which he said would “undoubtedly be followed by the placement of relevant military contingents, bases, and weapons threatening us”.

“We are working on the assumption that our concerns will be heard at least this time,” he added.

Though Putin has periodically demanded similar talks for more than a decade, Moscow’s “red lines” have come to the fore in the past month after the US warned allies Russia was massing up to 175,000 troops at its borders in preparation for a possible invasion of Ukraine early next year.

Putin said talk of an invasion was “provocative” but did not explicitly rule out any military activity, saying that Russia “has the right to ensure its security . . . in the medium and long term”.

One senior official from an eastern Nato state told the Financial Times that “under no circumstances should the debate on guarantees in the context of European security be allowed to unfold”.

Any talk of compromise with Moscow “must be immediately cut at the root”, they said, adding that this view was held by at least half a dozen EU members.

Putin said Russia would send a draft security agreement “in the next few days” to the US after agreeing to have “substantive” discussions with Biden during the call. The two leaders agreed to “form a structure that would deal with it in a detailed and thorough way”, Putin added.

Although a senior Biden administration official earlier in the week dismissed talk of red lines as unhelpful, the White House is keen to pursue a diplomatic route to dissuade Putin from invading Ukraine.

Biden ruled out the unilateral use of force to confront Russia on Wednesday, instead focusing on spelling out what he said would be “severe consequences” were Putin to escalate the conflict in Ukraine.

These included boosting military support to Ukraine, bolstering the US presence in Nato countries to reassure those on the eastern flank and assembling a punishing economic sanctions package.

The sanctions would target debt and banking transactions and attempt to scupper the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that links Russia and Germany, which has been built but is not yet pumping gas, according to officials briefed on the plans.

“I made it very clear [in the call with Putin] if in fact, he invades Ukraine, there will be severe consequences . . . economic consequences like none he’s ever seen,” Biden told reporters on Wednesday.

“I am absolutely confident he got the message.”

Additional reporting by Lauren Fedor in Washington

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2021-12-08 18:54:29Z
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