Moderna working on booster targeting Omicron variant: COVID Live | Coronavirus
The CEO of pharma company Moderna said the company is currently working on an Omicron-specific booster shot, which will be ready by the autumn season.
In Sweden, the prime minister announced a flurry of new restrictions, including early closings for bars and restaurants and a cap of 500 people at public gatherings, as the country registers record numbers of COVID cases fuelled by the Omicron coronavirus variant.
People in Italy who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 are barred from restaurants or taking domestic flights under new regulations.
Meanwhile, a study conducted in the United Kingdom says that T-cells from common cold illnesses may protect people from COVID-19, which can influence the development of future vaccines against the pandemic.
Here are the latest updates for January 10:
Omicron takes over as Czech Republic’s dominant coronavirus variant
The Omicron variant of the COVID-19 coronavirus has become the dominant strain in the Czech Republic, the country’s National Institute of Public Health (SZU) said.
The central European country of 10.7 million expects the Omicron wave to culminate in late January, with about 50,000 daily cases detected, but that may not be a complete picture because of the expected strain on testing capacity, the government and independent experts have said.
The SZU said that Omicron had accounted for more than 50 percent of positive tests as of January 8, with samples from mainly big cities on January 9 showing 79 percent of COVID-19 cases were the Omicron variant.
US breaks COVID-19 hospitalisation record as Omicron surges
COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States reached a fresh high of 132,646, according to a Reuters tally, surpassing the record of 132,051 set in January last year, amid a surge of the highly contagious Omicron variant.
Hospitalisations have increased steadily since late-December, doubling in the last three weeks, as Omicron quickly overtook Delta as the dominant version of the virus in the United States.
Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, Virginia, Washington D.C., and Wisconsin have reported record levels of hospitalised COVID-19 patients recently.
People queue for a COVID test in Times Square as the Omicron coronavirus variant continues to spread in New York City, US. [File: Andrew Kelly/Reuters]
EU takes southern Africa off no-travel list
The European Union has agreed to take southern African countries off its no-travel list, as Omicron cases in the European bloc soar, the French presidency of the European Union said.
Travellers coming from Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe will still have to show negative PCR tests taken no more than 72 hours earlier, in line with rules for most other countries.
“Member States have agreed this morning … to lift the emergency brake to allow air travel to resume with southern African countries,” the French presidency of the EU tweeted.
“Travellers from this area will still be subject to the health measures applicable to travellers from third countries.”
Moderna working on COVID-19 booster that targets Omicron, CEO says
An Omicron-specific booster shot could be ready by autumn, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said.
The booster is about to enter clinical trials.
“We need to be careful to try to stay ahead of a virus and not behind the virus,” he said.
The current Moderna booster shot, a half dose, increases neutralising antibody levels against Omicron 37-fold over the second shot. A full dose increases effectiveness 100-fold.
‘Deltacron’ likely result of lab error: experts
Experts said that an alleged hybrid coronavirus mutation dubbed “Deltacron” reportedly discovered in a Cyprus lab is most likely the result of a lab contamination, and not a new worrying variant.
Cypriot media reported the discovery Saturday, describing it as having “the genetic background of the Delta variant along with some of the mutations of Omicron”.
“The Cypriot ‘Deltacron’ sequences reported by several large media outlets look to be quite clearly contamination,” Tom Peacock, a virologist with the infectious diseases department at Imperial College London, tweeted over the weekend.
Lots of reports of Omicron sequences carrying Delta-like mutations (eg P681R or L452R). Although a subset of these might end up being real, the vast majority will most likely turn out to be contamination or coinfection. No clear signals of anything real or nasty happening (yet).
— Tom Peacock (@PeacockFlu) December 21, 2021
Chicago fight with teachers union stretches into 2nd week
Chicago school leaders canceled class for a fourth day in the nation’s third-largest district as negotiations with the teachers’ union over remote learning…
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