UK PM says there’s not “enough evidence” to justify tougher Covid-19 measures before Christmas
From CNN’s Livvy Doherty and Lauren Kent
There will be no further Covid-19 restrictions brought in for England before Christmas, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday, adding that there is not currently “enough evidence” to justify tougher measures.
In a pre-recorded statement released on his Twitter account, Johnson said “in view of the continuing uncertainty about several things – the severity of Omicron, uncertainty about the hospitalization rate or the impact of the vaccine rollout or the boosters, we don’t think today that there is enough evidence to justify any tougher measures before Christmas.”
He did not rule out bringing in any further measures after Christmas, however, adding “if the situation deteriorates we will be ready to take action if needed.”
“What this means is that people can go ahead with their Christmas plans but the situation remains finely balanced and I would urge everyone to exercise caution, to keep protecting yourselves and your loved ones, especially the vulnerable,” Johnson added.
What the numbers look like: On Tuesday, the UK reported at least 90,629 new coronavirus cases and 172 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test. The country also reported 15,363 additional confirmed cases of the Omicron variant, bringing the total number of confirmed Omicron cases to at least 60,508, according to data from the UK Health Security Agency.
Watch Johnson’s message on Twitter:
Minnesota governor and family test positive for Covid-19
From CNN’s Kay Jones, Brad Parks & Jessica Jordan
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, his wife, and son have all tested positive for Covid-19, according to a statement from his office.
The statement said his son tested positive on Monday, and he and his wife, Gwen, initially tested negative. After a second round of tests, they returned positive tests.
“Thankfully, my son has mild symptoms and Gwen and I have no symptoms,” Walz’s statement said. “My son is vaccinated, and Gwen and I are vaccinated and have received our booster shots, and I am confident that these vaccines are protecting my family and me from serious illness.”
The family is isolating at home and Gov. Walz said he is continuing to work from home until he feels better and tests negative.
“I never imagined” so many people would refuse Covid-19 vaccines, Collins says
From CNN’s Naomi Thomas
Dr. Francis Collins, former director of the National Institutes of Health, said that the NIH might have done more to learn about how people would act during the Covid-19 pandemic and that misinformation and disinformation have had huge costs.
“Maybe we underinvested in research on human behavior,” Collins said on “PBS Newshour” Tuesday when asked if there was anything he wished could have emerged from the NIH during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I never imagined a year ago, when those vaccines were just proving to be fantastically safe and effective, that we would still have 60 million people who had not taken advantage of them because of misinformation and disinformation that somehow dominated all of the ways in which people were getting their answers,” he continued.
“And a lot of those answers were, in fact, false. And we have lost so much as a result of that,” he said.
Biden administration officials have few details on upcoming website and shipment of free at-home tests
From CNN’s Jeremy Diamond
Senior administration officials touted the government’s purchase of 500 million rapid tests to ship to Americans next month as a “massive” and “unprecedented purchase,” but were unable to provide any new details about exactly when the website to request the tests will launch and how quickly tests will be shipped out.
Biden will deliver remarks later today on the at-home tests and his administration’s Covid-19 response.
“We’re working through all the details. And we’ll have those in the coming weeks,” a senior administration official said during a briefing with CNN.
The official said the “first deliveries” of those tests will happen in January and that the website will launch “in January or around January as well.” The official also said the White House is “working through all the details” when asked how Americans without internet access could secure tests.
The White House’s decision to ship free at-home tests to any American who wants one marks a shift for a White House whose press secretary just two weeks ago scoffed at the idea of shipping tests to every American.
Pressed on that shift, a senior administration official insisted that the new plan “builds” on the administration’s previous testing initiatives and pointed to increased supply.
“For the first time in the course of this pandemic because of all the actions we’ve taken — because of FDA authorizing a lot of tests, because we created the market, because we’ve used the DPA consistently for the last 11 months — we have the ability to make this purchase. We have the manufacturing capacity for a massive purchase like that starting in January,” the official said. “If there’s more we can do, we will do it.”
The official also pointed out that “demand for tests…has spiked now” amid the Omicron surge and the holiday season and said that the government’s purchase of 500 million tests is an extra layer on top of existing commercial supply.
US education secretary: “There’s no reason our schools should be going remote fully”
From CNN’s Elise Hammond
US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said there is “no reason our schools should be going remote fully,” but in order to protect students, teachers and families, everyone needs to do their part and practice mitigation strategies that are proven to work.
“Back at a time we didn’t have vaccines, we lost so many lives, and I believe that precautions that we took were necessary, but we’re a year removed from that. We know what works. We know how to protect ourselves,” Cardona told CNN on Tuesday.
“We need to keep our kids in the classroom,” he added.
Cardona said while a lot of things about the pandemic have changed in the last year and a half, things like masking and other preventive measures are still effective.
He encouraged parents to have conversations with their children and remind them of the importance of practicing these things.
“We can all do our part so that our schools stay open full-time,” he said.
Cardona also praised the Biden administration for prioritizing vaccines for educators and now for taking steps to improve access to testing. He said the Department of Education is working with its partners at the Department of Health and Human Services to make sure tests are available for schools.
“Student safety, staff safety is the number-one priority, but, yes, our children need to be in school. We know how to keep them safe. We have a year’s worth of experience,” he said.
Omicron becomes dominant variant in Denmark
From CNN’s Antonia Mortensen and Lauren Kent
Omicron is already the dominant variant in Denmark, said Danish Health Minister Magnus Heunicke on Tuesday, citing data from the Statens Serum Institut (SSI), part of Denmark’s Ministry of Health.
“We are seeing a growing epidemic, and today a record high infection with 13,558 confirmed cases including reinfections,” Heunicke said in a tweet. “SSI estimates that omicron is the dominant variant already now and continues to grow. Take care of yourself and others, get (re) vaccinated!”
Projections issued earlier this week by the Danish Ministry of Health anticipated between 9,000 to 45,000 new daily Covid-19 infections by Christmas Day, and up to 250 hospital admissions per day in light of the Omicron variant.
New restrictions came into effect on Sunday in an attempt to curb the spike in infections. Distancing measures and nightlife restrictions are also back in place, and passes are required in parts of the public transit system.
New York City mayor announces $100 incentive for booster shots through the end of the year
From CNN’s Laura Ly
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a $100 incentive on Tuesday for any New York City resident who gets a Covid-19 booster shot at a city-run vaccination site.
The incentive begins Tuesday and will run until Dec. 31, de Blasio said.
“I want to see New Yorkers respond. This is the moment. Come out in real big numbers, get those booster shots and help make your family safer, and help make this whole city safer,” de Blasio said.
Preliminary data suggests Omicron may be less likely to cause severe disease in the lungs
From CNN’s Jacqueline Howard
New research adds to growing evidence that the Omicron coronavirus variant may be less likely to cause severe disease in the lungs and appears to be less sensitive to current vaccines compared with other variants – but a booster dose can help improve protection.
Researchers from the United Kingdom, Japan and South Africa analyzed blood serum samples from vaccinated people and found that neutralization of Omicron was not detectable for most people who received two doses of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines; but a third dose of vaccine – or booster shot – rescued neutralization in the short term.
“The Omicron variant appears to be much better than Delta at evading neutralising antibodies in individuals who have received just two doses of the vaccine. A third dose ‘booster’ with the Pfizer vaccine was able to overturn this in the short term, though we’d still expect a waning in immunity to occur over time,” Ravi Gupta, an author of the study, which was posted Tuesday to the preprint server biorxiv.org, and a professor at the University of Cambridge’s Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease, said in a statement Monday.
To better understand how Omicron may infect our cells, Gupta and his colleagues also tested how pseudoviruses infected cells within a mini model of parts of the lungs. The researchers found that Omicron has lower infectivity of lung cells compared with the Delta variant.
“We speculate that the more efficient the virus is at infecting our cells, the more severe the disease might be. The fact that Omicron is not so good at entering lung cells and that it causes fewer fused cells with lower infection levels in the lab suggests this new variant may cause less severe lung-associated disease,” Gupta said in the statement.
“While further work is needed to corroborate these findings, overall, it suggests that Omicron’s mutations present the virus with a double-edged sword: it’s got better at evading the immune system, but it might have lost some of its ability to cause severe disease,” he added.
Fauci: If you’re vaccinated and boosted, the likelihood of getting seriously ill “is very, very low”
From CNN’s Naomi Thomas
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that while we are seeing breakthrough cases of coronavirus among people who are vaccinated and who have gotten their booster doses, “the likelihood of a vaccinated and boosted person of getting seriously ill from the infection is very, very low.”
“When you’re dealing with a virus, a variant like Omicron, which has really a spectacular capability of spreading from person to person, we will be seeing breakthrough infections of vaccinated people, as well as people are vaccinated and boosted, that is going to happen,” he said today on “CBS Mornings.”
He continued: “The issue is that people need to understand that even with that the likelihood of a vaccinated and boosted person of getting seriously ill from the infection is very, very low. It’s the unvaccinated people who are the most vulnerable not only to getting infected, but to getting a serious outcome.”
When asked if it’s possible we begin to live with Covid-19 long term, like the flu or common cold, Fauci said, “That’s entirely conceivable and likely, as a matter of fact.”
“We are not going to be in a situation of this degree of intensity indefinitely, for sure,” he added. “And what we’re hoping that when we get through this Omicron wave that we will have enough people vaccinated and or having been infected and recovered well, that there will be a degree of immunity in the community, such that you don’t have a situation where it’s dominating your life, with a level of infection and control is very low. We hope we get there soon.”
