Coronavirus pandemic Christmas travel will increase the spread of the Omicron Covid-19 variant, even among the fully vaccinated, the top US infectious disease expert says. “There’s no doubt about this, [Omicron] has an extraordinary capability of spreading,” Dr Anthony Fauci told NBC’s Meet the Press programme on Sunday. Dr Fauci, who advises the US […]
Coronavirus pandemic The Omicron variant is “spreading at lightning speed” in Europe and will likely become dominant in France by the start of next year, French Prime Minister Jean Castex has warned. He spoke on Friday, hours before France imposed strict travel restrictions on those entering from the United Kingdom. The UK has so far […]
Coronavirus pandemic IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGESImage caption, White flags represent each life lost in the US to Covid More than 800,000 Americans have now died from the coronavirus, the highest recorded national death toll from the global pandemic. It comes as the US reached 50 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 on Monday. Most deaths have […]
Coronavirus pandemic The new coronavirus variant Omicron is spreading across the globe at an unprecedented rate, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned Cases of the heavily mutated variant have been confirmed in 77 countries. But at a press conference, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was probably in many others that had […]
Coronavirus pandemic MPs will vote on new Covid rules for England later with around 70 Conservatives expected to rebel against Boris Johnson. The prime minister has defended his plans as a “proportionate” response to rising cases of the Omicron variant. However, his proposal to make Covid passes a requirement of entering large venues such […]
By Doug Faulkner BBC News The first people in the UK are in hospital with Omicron infections, Nadhim Zahawi has said. The new variant of coronavirus now accounts for a third of cases in London, the education secretary said. With two doses of a vaccine “not enough” Mr Zahawi encouraged people to get a booster […]
By Nicola Morrison BBC Monitoring An investigation by South Sudan’s government has found that senior officials may not have tested properly for Covid-19 before travelling overseas. President Salva Kiir was forced to cancel a trip to Qatar in November after several members of his staff who went ahead of him tested positive for the virus […]
Coronavirus pandemic The world should not panic about the new Omicron variant of Covid-19 but it should prepare, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. Speaking at a conference on Friday, top WHO scientist Soumya Swaminathan said the situation now was very different to a year ago. Reports suggest Omicron has been found in […]
Coronavirus pandemic Two men in the southern Indian state of Karnataka have tested positive for the Omicron coronavirus variant. One of them, a 66-year-old South African national, had travelled from there and has already left India, officials said. The second – a 46-year-old doctor in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru – has no […]
Coronavirus pandemic European Union countries should consider mandatory vaccination to combat Covid and the Omicron variant, the head of its Commission has said. Ursula von der Leyen said vaccines would be crucial in the fight against the “highly contagious” new variant. Some two dozen countries have reported cases of Omicron, and the EU has […]
