Coronavirus: What's happening in Canada and around the world on Monday – CBC.ca

The latest:

The World Health Organization on Monday pushed for an international accord to help prevent and fight future pandemics amid the emergence of the worrying new omicron coronavirus variant.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said many uncertainties remain about just how transmissible the variant is, and how severe an infection it might cause.

Tedros joined leaders like outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera for a long-planned and largely virtual special session of the UN health agency’s member states at the World Health Assembly.

The gathering is aimed at devising a global action plan toward preventing, preparing for, and responding to future pandemics.

“The emergence of the highly mutated omicron variant underlines just how perilous and precarious our situation is,” Tedros said, calling for a “legally binding” agreement that wasn’t mentioned in a draft text seeking consensus on the way forward. “Indeed, omicron demonstrates just why the world needs a new accord on pandemics.”

“Our current system disincentivizes countries from alerting others to threats that will inevitably land on their shores,” he said, noting that South Africa and Botswana — where the new variant was detected in southern Africa — should be praised and not “penalized” for their work. That was an allusion to travel restrictions announced by many countries on air travel to and from the region.

Tedros said WHO scientists and others around the world were working urgently to decipher the threat posed by the new variant, saying: “We don’t yet know whether omicron is associated with more transmission, more severe disease, more risk of infections, or more risk of evading vaccines.”

The world should now be “wide awake” to the threat of the coronavirus, “but omicron’s very emergence is another reminder that although many of us might think we are done with COVID-19, it’s not done with us,” he said.

A draft resolution set to be adopted by the World Health Assembly stops short of calling for work toward specifically establishing a “pandemic treaty” or “legally binding instrument” sought by some, which could beef up the international response when — not if — a new pandemic erupts.

European Union member countries and others had sought language calling for work toward a treaty, but the United States and a few other countries countered that the substance of any accord should be worked out first before any such document is given a name. A “treaty” would suggest a legally binding agreement that could require ratification — and would likely incur domestic political haggling in some countries.

Merkel, whose 16-year tenure is likely to end next week, called for “reliable financing” for WHO and increased contributions to the UN agency from its member states — while alluding to the EU position in favour of a binding agreement.

“The catastrophic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of health and the economy ought to be a lesson to us,” she said by video message. “Viruses know no national borders. That’s precisely why we should lay down measures to be taken to improve prevention, early detection and response in internationally binding fashion.”

The three-day meeting that opened Monday amounts to a long-term approach: Any UN-backed agreement is likely to take many months, if not years, to be concluded and come into effect.

But it comes as many countries have been scrambling to address the emergence of omicron, which has led to travel bans across the world and sent tremors through stock markets on Friday.

-From The Associated Press, last updated at 6:20 a.m. ET

What’s happening across Canada

WATCH | Dr. Peter Jüni, head of Ontario’s COVID-19 science advisory table, talks about what we know about omicron, what we still have to learn, and how people should handle news of a new variant: 

New variant will ‘mushroom everywhere,’ says Ontario science adviser

5 hours ago

The omicron variant spreads rapidly, says Dr. Peter Jüni, the head of Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, so we need to continue to act quickly with public health measures in Canada to help contain it. 7:52

What’s happening around the world

As of early Monday afternoon, more than 261.7 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker. The reported global death toll stood at more than 5.2 million.

In the Americas, President Joe Biden sought to reassure Americans on Monday that the United States was prepared to handle the new omicron variant, pledging to accelerate development of vaccines to handle it if necessary.

“This variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic,” Biden said in remarks at the White House following a meeting with his COVID-19 team.

“Sooner or later we are going to see cases of this new variant here in the United States,” Biden said. The White House is working with vaccine makers Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson to develop contingency plans, if needed, to handle omicron, he said.

In Europe, Britain will offer a COVID-19 booster vaccine to all adults and give second doses to children aged between 12 and 15, the U.K.’s top vaccine advisers said on Monday, accelerating shots in light of concern about the spread of the omicron variant.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization said that all adults between 18 and 39 years old could receive shots, extending a program that is already open for over 40s. The JCVI also said that the gap between second doses and boosters could be shortened to three months from six months, in response to the changing risk posed by omicron.

“Having a booster dose of the vaccine will help to increase our level of protection against the omicron variant,” said Wei Shen Lim, the JCVI’s chair for COVID-19 immunization.

JCVI reiterated that it advised a largely age-based approach to the booster program, with older adults as well as vulnerable people prioritized for shots.

In Africa on Sunday, a South African doctor who was one of the first to suspect the presence of a new variant said omicron appeared so far to be producing mild symptoms.

However, Abdool Karim, a professor at South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal and Columbia University in the United States, said it was too early to draw firm conclusions, because doctors can only comment on patients who they treat.

“In terms of clinical presentation, there’s not enough data yet,” he said.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s health minister called on Monday for a lifting of “discriminatory” travel bans imposed on southern African countries because of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

“We find these travel bans discriminatory in light of the fact that the same travel bans have not been imposed on other countries where this variant has been found,” Joe Phaahla told WHO in a speech.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the Philippines on Monday launched an ambitious drive to vaccinate nine million people against COVID-19 in three days, deploying security forces and thousands of volunteers in a program made urgent by the threats of the omicron variant. Three million daily vaccinations would be nearly quadruple the national average of 829,000 during November.

Meanwhile, Singapore and Malaysia reopened one of the world’s busiest land borders on Monday, allowing vaccinated travellers to cross after nearly two years of remaining shut due to the pandemic.

In the Middle East, OPEC and its allies have postponed technical meetings to later this week, giving themselves more time to assess the impact of the new omicron coronavirus variant on oil demand and prices, according to OPEC+ sources and documents.

-From Reuters, The Associated Press and CBC News, last updated at 12:50 p.m. ET

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