British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is calling for thousands of volunteers to staff new vaccination centres in shopping areas, stadiums and racecourses as the government accelerates its booster program to combat the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
The drive comes two days after Johnson set a target of giving booster shots to all adults by the end of this year to stem the tide of omicron, the latest variant of concern.
“We need tens of thousands of people to help out — everyone from trained vaccinators to stewards,” Johnson said in a statement. “Many thousands have already given their time — but we need you to come forward again, to work alongside our brilliant GPs, doctors, nurses and pharmacists, to deliver jabs and save lives.”
Johnson faces a large rebellion among his Conservative lawmakers on Tuesday in a parliamentary vote over new restrictions to try to curb the spread of the new variant, which was first reported in southern Africa in November.
The House of Commons is voting on measures that come into force this week, ordering masks to be worn indoors in England, changing rules on self-isolation and — contentiously — requiring proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test to enter nightclubs and large crowded events.
Vaccine passes have become commonplace in many European countries, but Johnson’s government has resisted introducing them in England, though the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which set their own health rules, have done so.
Johnson argues that the highly transmissible omicron strain has changed the argument, and vaccine passes are now a sensible measure. Many Conservative legislators disagree, arguing that vaccine passports are economically damaging and a restriction on individual freedoms.
Long queues formed at vaccine centres in England on Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of people rushed to get COVID-19 booster shots.
Omicron spreading quickly
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Sajid Javid told Parliament that Britain will remove all 11 countries from its COVID-19 travel red list from Wednesday.
“Now that there is community transmission of omicron in the U.K. and omicron has spread so widely across the world, the travel red list is now less effective in slowing the incursion of omicron from abroad,” he said. “Whilst we will maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel, we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4 a.m. tomorrow morning.”
Health officials with the World Health Organization — which had previously called for a moratorium on boosters as it worked to increase equitable access to the vaccine worldwide — on Tuesday noted that it’s still critical to get doses to people who have not yet had access to initial shots.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said vaccine booster shots can play a role in curbing the spread of COVID-19 as long as people most in need of protection also get access to jabs.
“There remains a vast gap in rates of <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a> vaccination between countries:<br>-41 countries still haven’t been able to vaccinate 10% of their populations<br>-98 countries have not reached 40%<br>We also see significant inequities between population groups in the same country”-<a href=”https://twitter.com/DrTedros?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@DrTedros</a>
The update came as Tedros and colleagues urged people not to underestimate the virus even as scientists work to pin down more detail on the omicron variant.
“Surely, we have learned by now that we underestimate this virus at our peril. Even if omicron does cause less severe disease, the sheer number of cases could once again overwhelm unprepared health systems,” he said, noting in his briefing that omicron was “spreading at a rate we have not seen with any previous variant.”
Tedros said 77 countries had reported cases of the omicron variant — and noted that it was likely that it had spread to other countries that had not yet detected it.
–From The Associated Press and Reuters, last updated at 12:45 p.m. ET
What’s happening across Canada
WATCH | COVID-19: How can Canada fight omicron?
COVID-19: How can Canada fight omicron?
16 hours ago
Duration 1:53
Dr. Peter Juni, scientific director of Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, discusses the steps needed to fight the expected wave of omicron and whether more lockdowns could be looming. 1:53
What’s happening around the world
People get vaccinated against COVID-19 at Soweto’s Baragwanath Hospital on Monday. South Africa’s seven-day rolling average of daily new COVID-19 cases has risen from 7.60 new cases per 100,000 people on Nov. 28 to 32.71 new cases per 100,000 people on Dec. 12, according to Johns Hopkins University. (Jerome Delay/The Associated Press)
As of early Tuesday morning, more than 270.8 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to a case-tracking tool from U.S.-based Johns Hopkins University. The reported global death toll stood at more than 5.3 million.
The African continent might not reach the target of vaccinating 70 per cent of its 1.3 billion population against COVID-19 until the second half of 2024, a target many of the world’s richer countries have already met, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.
The warning comes as the world faces a new surge in cases driven by the highly infectious omicron variant. Health officials in South Africa, which first announced the variant, say early data indicates it causes less severe illness and shorter, less-intensive hospital stays. But some richer countries have rushed to allow booster vaccine doses in response, even as less than eight per cent of Africa’s population has received two doses.
Just 20 of Africa’s 54 countries have fully vaccinated at least 10 per cent of their populations against COVID-19. And 10 countries have fully vaccinated less than two per cent of their populations.
The WHO Africa director, Matshidiso Moeti, pushed back against any suggestion that African nations are allowing large numbers of vaccine doses to go to waste amid poor infrastructure and vaccine hesitancy. The African continent has received about 434 million vaccine doses, and some 910,000 of them have expired in 20 countries, Moeti said. The main challenge in Africa, she said, remains access to vaccine supplies.
????LIVE: Tune in for this <a href=”https://twitter.com/WHOAFRO?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@WHOAFRO</a> press briefing on the <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a> pandemic, the <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Omicron?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Omicron</a> variant and vaccine rollout in <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/Africa?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#Africa</a>. Dr <a href=”https://twitter.com/MoetiTshidi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@MoetiTshidi</a> is joined by Professor Flavia Senkubuge. <a href=”https://t.co/Vxyu0BojLs”>https://t.co/Vxyu0BojLs</a>
In Europe, France is contemplating tightening controls for travellers coming from Britain, where the new, more contagious omicron coronavirus variant seems to be rapidly spreading, said French government spokesperson Gabriel Attal.
“Regarding Britain, the current rule is to show a negative test less than 48 hours old in order to enter France,” Attal told France Info radio on Tuesday. “But we are always looking at means to tighten the framework. We are currently working on that and we should, I think, come to a conclusion in the coming days.”
A medical staff member works in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for COVID-19 patients at La Timone hospital in Marseille, France, last Friday as the country sees an increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. (Eric Gaillard/Reuters)
Meanwhile, the Dutch government on Tuesday said it is considering closing schools a week early for Christmas this year as coronavirus infections remain high and hospitals struggle with a wave of COVID-19 patients.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Singapore is considering requiring its residents to get a booster shot to qualify as fully vaccinated against COVID-19, its health minister said.
In the Middle East, Oman reported two cases of the omicron variant. Health ministry officials said the cases involved travel abroad, according to local media reports.
In the Americas, the omicron variant was estimated to be 2.9 per cent of the COVID-19 variants circulating in the United States as of Dec. 11, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For the week ending Dec. 4, the omicron variant constituted 0.4 per cent of all the variants in the country, based on the specimens sequenced.
The agency also estimated that the fast-spreading variant was 13.1 per cent of circulating coronavirus variants in New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands for the week ending Dec. 11.
-From Reuters, The Associated Press and CBC News, last updated at 10:25 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit an all-time low in the U.S. this year, part of a big drop in the youth use of tobacco overall, the government reported Thursday.
There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs. The number went from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year — the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key survey began in 1999.
“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, in a statement. However, “our mission is far from complete.”
A previously reported drop in vaping largely explains the overall decline in tobacco use from 10% to about 8% of students, health officials said.
The youth e-cigarette rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% last year — the lowest at any point in the last decade. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, followed by nicotine pouches.
Use of other products has been dropping, too.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of high school students smoked. This year, it was just 1.7%, down from the 1.9%. That one-year decline is so small it is not considered statistically significant, but marks the lowest since the survey began 25 years ago. The middle school rate also is at its lowest mark.
Recent use of hookahs also dropped, from 1.1% to 0.7%.
The results come from an annual CDC survey, which included nearly 30,000 middle and high school students at 283 schools. The response rate this year was about 33%.
Officials attribute the declines to a number of measures, ranging from price increases and public health education campaigns to age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers selling products to kids.
Among high school students, use of any tobacco product dropped to 10%, from nearly 13% and e-cigarette use dipped under 8%, from 10%. But there was no change reported for middle school students, who less commonly vape or smoke or use other products,
Current use of tobacco fell among girls and Hispanic students, but rose among American Indian or Alaska Native students. And current use of nicotine pouches increased among white kids.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.
There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.
The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.
Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.
Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.
“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.
But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.
That includes his own teenage daughter.
“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.
It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.
“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama man was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in the January hack of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission social media account that led the price of bitcoin to spike, the Justice Department said.
Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, is accused of helping to break into the SEC’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, allowing the hackers to prematurely announce the approval of long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC’s account was compromised. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.
Authorities say Council carried out what’s known as a “SIM swap,” using a fake ID to impersonate someone with access to the SEC’s X account and convince a cellphone store to give him a SIM card linked to the person’s phone. Council was able to take over the person’s cellphone number and get access codes to the SEC’s X account, which he shared with others who broke into the account and sent the post, the Justice Department says.
Prosecutors say after Council returned the iPhone he used for the SIM swap, his online searches included: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
An email seeking comment was sent Thursday to an attorney for Council, who is charged in Washington’s federal court with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
The price of bitcoin swung from about $46,730 to just below $48,000 after the unauthorized post hit on Jan. 9 and then dropped to around $45,200 after the SEC’s denial. The SEC officially approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin the following day.
