Daily Covid Briefing
Nations across Europe have been tightening restrictions to prevent the spread from the Omicron variant, and on Saturday, the Netherlands became the first European country to announce a full lockdown to fight the variant.
Dutch leaders ordered the closing of all nonessential shops, bars, restaurants, gyms, outdoor sports, cultural venues and schools from Sunday until mid-January.
“It’s terrible,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte acknowledged Saturday at a televised news conference. “This is terrible for everyone, especially on the eve of the holidays.”
Mr. Rutte said that a fifth wave of the virus was inevitable because of Omicron. “We have to act now to prevent a worst-case scenario,” he said. “Without measures, we could be witnessing an uncontrollable situation at the start of January.”
The Netherlands, normally a well-organized country, has struggled more than many other wealthy nations to control the virus, and its booster campaign has been relatively slow.
The health minister, Hugo de Jonge, said that efforts to mass-administer booster shots would be drastically increased. “We need this to buy time in order to find out how sick the Omicron variant can make us,” he said. Researchers are racing to determine whether the variant might have more or less virulence than earlier versions.
Official measures against the virus have not always fared well among the Dutch. Anger over the country’s partial lockdown and other restrictions set off unruly and sometimes violent protests last month and in January in several cities.
Other European countries have also taken action as they detect Omicron in an increasing number of case samples. Some have tightened travel restrictions, while others have closed public venues and canceled holiday celebrations.
Austria announced tougher entry restrictions for travelers without booster shots. Germany’s regional health ministers are pushing for stricter rules for arrivals from Britain. And in Denmark, one of the first countries in Europe to see a surge of the variant, theaters, concert halls and amusement parks have been closed.
With the Omicron variant “spreading at lightning speed” in Europe, it will probably become dominant in France by the start of next year, the French prime minister, Jean Castex, has warned.
Ireland imposed an 8 p.m. curfew on pubs and bars starting Monday, among other new restrictions. Prime Minister Micheál Martin addressed the nation on Friday night. “None of this is easy,” the Reuters news agency quoted him as saying. “We are all exhausted with Covid and the restrictions it requires. The twists and turns, the disappointments and the frustrations take a heavy toll on everyone. But it is the reality that we are dealing with.”
All countries are looking toward Britain, which has so far been hardest hit in the region, with a total of nearly 25,000 confirmed Omicron cases as of Saturday. Britain reported 90,418 new coronavirus cases on Saturday — down from a record of just over 93,000 on Friday.
Compared with the previous week, cases in Britain were up 44.4 percent. Deaths, which typically lag changes in case numbers, were down by nearly 6 percent over the same period.
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in 89 countries, with its case numbers doubling every 1.5 to three days in places with community transmission (not just infections acquired abroad), the World Health Organization has said.
Tracking the Coronavirus ›
transcript
London Declares a ‘Major Incident’ as Omicron Surges
The declaration, which indicated that emergency services and hospitals could not guarantee their normal level of response, came as London faced a steep rise in coronavirus cases driven by the Omicron variant.
I’ve been meeting over the last few days on a daily basis with colleagues across the city, from the N.H.S. to councils, from the fire service to the police. We’re incredibly concerned by the huge surge in the Omicron variant. Over the last 24 hours, we’ve had the largest number of new cases since this pandemic began, more than 26,000. Hospital admissions are going up, but also staff absences are going up by a massive level. So I’ve taken the decision in consultation with our partners to declare a major incident today. It’s really important Londoners understand how serious things are. The best thing Londoners can do is to get both vaccines and the booster. They provide extra layers of protection. The really bad news is those in hospital, the vast, vast majority are unvaccinated. That’s why it’s so important to get both the vaccines and the booster jab.
With hospitalizations and a rapid rise in new coronavirus cases being driven by a surge of the Omicron variant, London’s mayor on Saturday declared a “major incident” — or emergency — for the first time since January.
The declaration sets up special coordination procedures and indicates that emergency services and hospitals cannot guarantee their normal level of response.
The move came as the number of patients in London hospitals increased 29 percent over the last week. The city has confirmed 65,525 new cases in the last week and 26,418 cases in the last day, the highest number since the start of the pandemic, Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office said in a statement on Saturday. The Greater London area has seen cases rise by nearly 200 percent over the last two weeks, making it the hardest hit area of Britain.
“It’s really important that Londoners understand how serious things are,” Mr. Khan said in a video posted by The Telegraph. “The best thing Londoners can do is get both vaccines and the booster. They provide extra layers of protection.”
The “really bad news,” he added, was that “the vast, vast majority” of those hospitalized are unvaccinated.
British health officials warned this week that the Omicron variant was doubling at a rate of less than every two days in parts of the country. While the effect on hospitalizations and mortality rates remained unclear, the National Health Service was likely to face a deluge of patients because of the explosive growth in cases, Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, said this week.
“It is moving at an absolutely phenomenal pace,” he said.
Countries around Europe are clamping down to push back against the spread of the Omicron variant. The Netherlands announced a full lockdown, Denmark closed theaters and concert halls, and Ireland instituted an 8 p.m. curfew for pubs.
In Britain, the surge of the virus has put intense pressure on political officials. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been under fire in recent weeks after reports that his staff held holiday gatherings at Downing Street last year at a time when the government was instructing people not to meet with friends and family.
In London, Mr. Khan is trying to overcome vaccine hesitancy. On Saturday, he visited a mass-vaccination pop-up clinic and announced a series of virtual events to encourage Londoners to get vaccinated.
The mayor’s office said that London’s Black and Asian communities, along with low-income residents, had been hurt disproportionately by the pandemic. These communities, Black Londoners in particular, the office said, had also been targeted by vaccine misinformation.
More than 2.5 million booster doses have been given in London, but more than a million eligible residents have yet to receive a single dose, the mayor’s office said.
Mr. Khan last declared a major incident in January when a peak in Covid-19 cases was taking a toll on the N.H.S. He also made the same declaration for a tram derailment in 2016, the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 and a terrorist attack near London Bridge in 2019.
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Continue reading the main storyWASHINGTON — The nation’s coronavirus testing capacity, already straining to keep up with demand, is facing enormous new pressure, with holiday travelers waiting in long lines to be tested, overworked laboratories struggling to keep up and rapid at-home diagnostics flying off pharmacy shelves as the Omicron variant fuels a rapid spike in Covid-19 cases.
Two years into the pandemic, the surging desire for tests in the face of limited supply threatens to thwart President Biden’s response, but it is hardly a new problem. The United States has bungled testing from the outset of the pandemic, experts say, and matching supply with demand has been a persistent challenge for both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Mr. Biden came into office vowing to make testing for the virus cheap and easily accessible, and there have been some improvements since he was sworn in. Laboratory tests are more plentiful now, and more than a dozen at-home tests are available, up from zero in January. The Food and Drug Administration has sped up its approval process, and the supply of at-home tests has increased steadily since August; last month, it was expected to double by March.
But the United States remains a far cry from Europe, where more than three dozen types of at-home tests are available for as little as $1 to $2 per test. Americans can pay as much as $25 for a box of two, and Mr. Biden’s plan to have insurers reimburse for those purchases will not take effect until mid-January at the earliest.
In Miami, cars lined up bumper to bumper this week at a drive-through test site. In Providence, R.I., there were no testing appointments available at a local CVS; those looking to be tested were instructed to buy over-the-counter at-home tests.
Around the country, retailers — both online and brick-and-mortar — are having trouble keeping over-the-counter tests in stock. Walmart was selling Abbott’s rapid antigen test online Friday, but many stores in Washington, D.C., and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs were sold out. In Houston, the pharmacist at a local Walgreens, Hanh Ho, said shipments of at-home tests arrive every Wednesday and sell out the same day.
“They’re a hot item,” Mr. Ho said. “One guy came in and took all of them.”
Reporting was contributed by Maria Jimenez Moya from Houston, Ben Berke from Providence, R.I., Eric Adelson from Orlando, Fla., and Grace Gorenflo from Seattle.
WASHINGTON — The latest surge of the coronavirus is another reminder for President Biden of how hard it is to get ahead of the pandemic.
Vaccine effectiveness has waned in the onslaught of Delta and Omicron. A spike in demand for testing is straining the system. And masks remain a political issue across the country.
Nearly a year into his presidency, Mr. Biden’s promise to “shut down the virus, not the country” remains only partly fulfilled. Stubborn resistance to vaccines among millions and the arrival of the fast-spreading new variant have upended the president’s plans for a hopeful, end-of-the-year holiday season.
Just a week before Christmas, Mr. Biden had to offer a warning of gloom.
“We are looking at a winter of severe illness and death — if you’re unvaccinated — for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm,” Mr. Biden said at the White House on Thursday. “The whole point is: Omicron is here, it’s going to start to spread much more rapidly in the beginning of the year, and the only real protection is to get your shots.”
Issuing dire new warnings is not where Mr. Biden or his top advisers expected they would be at this point in the year.
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Continue reading the main storyThe Labor Department said on Saturday that it would delay until Feb. 9 the deadline for full enforcement of its rule requiring large companies to have their workers get coronavirus vaccines or be tested weekly, after weeks of legal battles created uncertainty and confusion for employers.
The department’s move came a day after a federal appeals panel reinstated the Biden administration's rule requiring that companies with at least 100 employees mandate their workers be vaccinated against the coronavirus or face weekly testing by Jan. 4. The rule had also mandated that those employers require masks for unvaccinated workers by Dec. 5.
The decision on Friday, by a split three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, overturned a ruling by its counterpart in New Orleans, the Fifth Circuit, that had blocked the rule last month.
The government had argued that its vaccine mandate was well within the authority of the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, to pass an emergency temporary standard, so long as it could show that workers were exposed to a “grave danger” and that the rule was necessary.
Several of the many plaintiffs who have challenged that rule immediately asked the Supreme Court to intervene as part of its “emergency” docket. Appeals from the Sixth Circuit are assigned to be reviewed by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who under Supreme Court rules can, in theory, make a decision on his own but is more likely to refer the matter to the full Supreme Court for consideration.
The Labor Department said in a statement on Saturday that it would “not issue citations for noncompliance” with any requirements of the rule before Jan. 10. It said it would not issue citations for noncompliance with the standard’s testing requirements before Feb. 9, “so long as an employer is exercising reasonable, good faith efforts to come into compliance with the standard.”
While the Biden administration has encouraged companies to move forward with carrying out the rule despite the legal uncertainty, many have held off until the matter has been fully addressed by the court. Trade groups, including the National Retail Federation, have pushed for a delay in the requirements.
Companies that fail to comply with the rule may be fined. An OSHA penalty is typically $13,653 for every serious violation, but can be up to 10 times that amount if OSHA determines that the violation is willful or repeated. OSHA has a whistle-blower system that allows workers to report violations of its rules, though labor lawyers said that it has historically tended to not have enough inspectors.
For many people, the hardest part of pandemic life after vaccination is the uncertainty about risk. Is it safe to gather unmasked with my vaccinated friends? Can I travel for the holidays? Can my children safely see their grandparents?
But rapid home testing can lower risk, ease the worry and help you get back to life.
Testing isn’t a substitute for getting the vaccine. But as long as large numbers of people remain unvaccinated and continue to spread the coronavirus, vaccinated people are at risk for so-called breakthrough infections, which often come with mild symptoms or none at all.
For the vaccinated, a negative test is like a one-day anxiety-free pass. At-home rapid tests can tell people within minutes whether they are contagious with Covid-19. It gives added assurance that no one at a child’s birthday party, a wedding or family gathering is spreading the virus. If you’ve been traveling through airports or you’ve recently spent time at a crowded outdoor concert, a few rapid tests, taken days apart, can show that you’re unlikely to be spreading the coronavirus after attending those higher-risk events.
The rapid home tests work much like a pregnancy test with a pink line indicating you’re positive for the coronavirus. The tests all require you to swizzle a long swab in both nostrils. Depending on the test, you may insert the swab into a special card reader or dip the swab in a solution and use a test strip, then wait 10 to 15 minutes for the result.
Currently, the rapid home antigen tests available in the United States include Abbott’s BinaxNOW, Quidel’s QuickVue, Australia’s Ellume and the recently authorized test by Acon Labs, Flowflex. The tests typically are packaged two per box.
Although no test is 100 percent accurate, the new rapid home tests are highly reliable for telling you whether you’re contagious on a given day. Rapid tests identify about 98 percent of cases in which a person is infectious.
But it’s also possible to test negative on one day, and then test positive a few days later. That doesn’t mean the first test was wrong — it just means on the day you tested, you weren’t infectious yet, even though you later tested positive for the virus.
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Continue reading the main storyAs the pandemic surges toward its third year, shape-shifting into the contagious new Omicron variant and spiking dangerously in the Northeast, around the Great Lakes and in other parts of the country, health officials and epidemiologists are vehemently urging Americans to get vaccinated and boosted. But the going has been slow.
Of American adults who are fully vaccinated and eligible for a booster shot, only about 30 percent have received one, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And among all Americans, only about one in six has received a booster. On Friday, as New York City was racing to confront a precipitous surge in infections, city officials said only about 1.5 million New Yorkers out of more than 8 million had received booster shots.
Some states may be undercounting, but the lag is alarming because Omicron infections appear to evade regular one- or two-dose vaccinations. Vaccines still provide robust protection against death and severe illness, but when it comes to preventing the virus from getting a foothold in the first place, scientists increasingly believe that three shots are the new two shots.
Just over half of Americans 65 and older — the population most vulnerable to a severe outcome from the virus — have received a booster. And public health experts are concerned that socioeconomic disparities in vaccination rates will be exacerbated as booster shots roll out. Difficulty in taking time off work and disconnection from health care systems have contributed to a persistent gap in vaccination rates between the most and least socioeconomically vulnerable counties.
Widespread, lasting immunization is critical to controlling the virus, according to health officials. Every poorly protected lung is a safe harbor for Covid-19 to spread and mutate. And every surge further exhausts the nation’s already depleted health care system, consuming finite hospital staff, resources and attention that then cannot be used to treat people with other serious illnesses.
On Friday, Prince George’s County in suburban Maryland became the first major school district to announce an extended, systemwide shift to remote learning amid the nation’s fifth major surge of the coronavirus.
With Delta surging, and the threat of the highly contagious Omicron variant looming, the district will shutter school buildings for the remaining four days of classes before Christmas break and for two additional weeks in the new year.
“Educators, administrators and support staff must be able to deliver in-person instruction and other activities in conditions that prioritize their own health, as well as the well-being of the school community,” said Monica Goldson, chief executive of the district, in a written statement. “The increased positivity rates have significantly challenged the ability to do so, causing anxiety among many school communities and disruption to the school day.”
Last week, the district of roughly 131,000 students reported a two-day total of 100 virus cases, but this week, it saw 155 cases in a single day and shut down three of its 208 schools, according to a Wednesday announcement from Dr. Goldson. A district spokeswoman said on Friday that she could not immediately provide more detailed data.
Prince George’s County experienced some of the longest classroom closures in the nation last school year. Two-thirds of its students are from low-income families, and over 90 percent are Black or Hispanic.
Other major school districts are not keen to return to remote schooling, despite the current surge. Education leaders said they had no plans to broadly close school buildings, even if rising case counts might mean an uptick in targeted classroom closures or students quarantined after the holidays.
Indeed, even in parts of the northeast and Midwest where the virus is raging, transmission in schools appeared to be limited, as it has been throughout the pandemic.
In Chicago Public Schools, there were 1,071 confirmed positive Covid-19 cases between Dec. 12 and Dec. 16, in a district of about 330,000 students; 6,818 students and 380 adults were quarantined as of Dec. 14.
In the nation’s largest district, New York City, with 938,000 students, there were 592 confirmed cases as of Dec. 16; 50 classrooms and three schools were closed because of the virus.
New York City officials said Thursday that despite rampant rumors, a systemwide shutdown was not a possibility. Mayor Bill de Blasio, in his final weeks in office, sees his efforts to keep schools open during the pandemic as a key part of his legacy.
In Boston, a districtwide return to remote learning would only occur at the behest of the state, said Sharra Gaston, a spokeswoman for Boston Public Schools.
Several of the same teachers’ unions that fought for extended school closures and strict virus safety measures last year said that a systemwide return to remote learning was currently unlikely, though they still want districts to beef up testing and contact tracing protocols.
“We haven’t really talked about that,” said Erik Berg, vice president of the Boston Teachers Union. “Our members want to work in person with kids, and we think that’s the best way for schooling to occur.”
In Chicago, where conflict between Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago Teachers Union has been unrelenting, the union vice president, Stacy Davis Gates, took a somewhat more cautious tone, noting that a post-holiday surge was a near inevitability given family gatherings and the lack of widespread vaccination in many lower-income neighborhoods.
Asked if the union might push for a period of remote learning after the holidays, she responded, “What’s on the table is that we have to keep people healthy and safe.”
Eliza Shapiro contributed reporting.
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Continue reading the main storyOn Friday evening, the Nets announced they would allow Kyrie Irving, the star guard whom they barred from the team until he received a Covid vaccination, to rejoin the team part time. By Saturday afternoon, that plan was on hold: Irving, who remains unvaccinated, has entered the league’s health and safety protocols, part of a leaguewide spike in such cases.
Irving is just the latest Nets star on the team’s growing list of absences. Earlier Saturday, the Nets confirmed that the star forward Kevin Durant had also entered the protocols and would miss Saturday’s game against the Orlando Magic in Brooklyn. Durant and Irving became the eighth and ninth Nets players declared ineligible to play for virus-related reasons, a growing list of absences that has left the team in danger of not having enough players to compete.
Earlier, the Nets had said only that Durant would not play because of an ankle injury. On Saturday, they announced he had entered the virus protocols.
According to the league’s health and safety rules, Durant, who is vaccinated, can return after he records two negative tests at least 24 hours apart. Irving, because he is unvaccinated, faces much stricter rules before he is even allowed to return to practice.
The resurgence of the virus has caused havoc across the N.B.A., as well as other professional sports leagues. On Saturday, the National Hockey League announced that neither the Boston Bruins nor the Nashville Predators would play for at least a week, and that games this weekend involving the Toronto Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks would be postponed.
Much of the world is on edge again, experiencing déjà vu as another uncertain holiday season sets in.
That is because coronavirus cases are surging, and officials around the world are bracing for a new wave stoked by the Omicron variant, which appears to be most contagious version yet and is playing a major role in the sharp increase of infections in recent days. In Denmark, Omicron cases were doubling roughly every two days. In South Africa, Omicron spread twice as fast as the highly infectious Delta variant.
The threat of Omicron is particularly acute in Britain, where government officials estimate that about 200,000 people a day are being infected with the new variant. To contain the spike in cases, British lawmakers passed sweeping new rules, including a vaccine certification policy for entering nightclubs and places with large crowds. Boris Johnson, the prime minister whose support among members of his Conservative Party members is flagging, also announced plans to accelerate the country’s booster program.
Similar efforts to encourage boosters are lagging in the United States, where officials are preparing for a wave as infections rise and the proportion of coronavirus cases caused by the Omicron variant increases sharply. In New York State, which recorded its highest single-day total of cases on Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul imposed a mask mandate for indoor venues where proof of full vaccination is not required. In New York City, infections have caused Broadway shows to go dark and the Rockettes to end this season’s run early because of “increasing challenges from the pandemic.”
But there is good news. Several new laboratory studies indicate that vaccines, and especially booster shots, offer protection against the worst outcomes from the Omicron variant. Still, research shows that the variant s likely to infect many people who have been vaccinated or recovered from bouts with older versions of the virus.
In other news:
A federal appeals panel reinstated the Biden administration’s rule requiring that companies with at least 100 employees mandate their workers be vaccinated against the coronavirus or face weekly testing by Jan. 4. The decision on Friday, by a split three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, overturned a ruling by its counterpart in New Orleans, the Fifth Circuit, that had blocked the rule last month.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday that unvaccinated students exposed to the coronavirus can remain in school, as long as they are tested for the virus twice in the week after and both tests come back negative. The new guidance, known as the “test to stay” protocol, could ease the burden on children who have been expected to stay home if a close contact tested positive for the virus, and on parents who have had to scramble to retrieve them from school or find day care.
The C.D.C. said on Thursday that vaccines other than Johnson & Johnson’s should be preferred in light of evidence that the J.&J. shot can trigger a rare blood clotting disorder linked to at least nine deaths in the United States in the past year.
The Supreme Court on Monday allowed New York’s requirement that health care workers be vaccinated against the coronavirus even if they cite religious objections.
Pfizer announced on Tuesday that its Covid treatment was found to stave off severe disease in a key clinical trial and that it is likely to work against the Omicron variant.
Days after introducing a coronavirus vaccine pass system, South Korea’s government is facing a backlash from some citizens who worry that their freedoms are being excessively limited in the name of public health.