COVID rates continue to rise in many communities and countries around the world, driven by both Delta and Omicron variants. Vaccination rates are climbing in the US and some other countries, while vaccine access remains elusive in most low-income countries. Preliminary research seems to show that booster shots help protect more against Omicron. And rich countries are now hoarding vaccines for booster. A STAT News (US) investigation found “manufacturers have created enough vaccines to inoculate most of the world against COVID-19. But dozens of low-income countries still face dire shortages because rich nations are building stockpiles with hundreds of millions more doses than they need…. The G7 and European Union combined have 769.8 million vaccines to spare this year, even if 75 percent of the population is vaccinated and 20 percent gets boosters (which assumes a three-fold increase in the daily vaccination rates), plus 10 percent is set aside for waste, according to Duke’s analysis.”
 

If You Are in a Hurry

• Read Stephanie Nolen in The New York Times on challenges of getting vaccines into arms in Zambia.
• Read a Buzzfeed investigation about the failures of the early CDC test for COVID and the impact on the pandemic and the future of CDC.
• Read The Washington Post on the shortfall of vaccines delivered by COVAX and then watch a viral video about vaccine apartheid.
• Read Reuters on new reports from WHO and the World Bank that document how more people have been pushed into poverty by the pandemic. And read the two reports here and here.
• Read Reuters on the WHO’s latest information in Omicron.
• Forget Time Magazine’s Person of the year and read about the Heroes of the Year – four scientists who developed the mRNA vaccine platform.

 

What Do We Know About Omicron?

 
Reuters (UK) reports, “The Omicron coronavirus variant, reported in more than 60 countries, poses a ‘very high’ global risk, with some evidence that it evades vaccine protection but clinical data on its severity is limited, the World Health Organization says…. The WHO said there were early signs that vaccinated and previously infected people would not build enough antibodies to ward off an infection from Omicron, resulting in high transmission rates and ‘severe consequences’.”
 
STAT (US) reports, “As the Omicron variant snowballs in South Africa and widens its inroads in Europe, evidence is mounting that it can outcompete the highly transmissible Delta variant…. ‘It is more likely than not, at this point, that Omicron is going to dominate Delta systematically across regions and countries,’ said Jacob Lemieux, an infectious diseases physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, who is helping lead a state program studying coronavirus variants. He cautioned researchers are still scrambling to better understand the new variant, but added, ‘We need to be prepared for the possibility that Omicron is going to cause a significant outbreak, not just in isolated locations, but elsewhere, including here.’”
 
The Daily Maverick (South Africa) reports, “Monday’s coronavirus test results registered close to one in three as positive while the fourth wave of COVID-19 continued to gain momentum in South Africa. It is expected that the National Coronavirus Command Council will meet this week to decide on the possibility of introducing more restrictions on movement and gatherings in light of the outbreak.
 
Fortune (US) reports, “Nearly three weeks after the Omicron variant was first identified by South African scientists, the COVID-19 mutation has whipped across the world, with infections in at least 63 countries. But in South Africa itself, the cases seem to be nearing their peak, and could already be headed for decline…. Data from the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases shows positivity rates [in Guateng province] dropping from 30 percent to around 15 percent between Thursday and Saturday, while the number of new hospitalizations fell from 207 to 64 over the same period…. This and other COVID data suggest that the infections from the COVID-19 mutation could peak during the next week before beginning to drop, says Pieter Streicher, a coronavirus analyst at the University of Johannesburg….”
 
The Guardian (UK) reports, “Cases of the Omicron variant could be spreading even faster in England than in South Africa, according to a senior scientific adviser, who warned that the variant was a ‘very severe setback’ to hopes of bringing the pandemic under control…. Speaking at the online event, Edmunds dismissed suggestions that the Omicron variant might be ‘good news’ if it hospitalised people at only half the rate as the Delta variant. The hope comes largely from hospital admissions in South Africa, where the population is far younger than in the UK and so less likely to experience severe COVID illness in the first place. While the average age in the UK is just over 40, it is less than 28 in South Africa.”
 
Reuters (UK) reports, “At least one person has died in the United Kingdom after contracting the Omicron coronavirus variant…. Deaths from Omicron may have occurred in other countries but none has been publicly confirmed yet outside Britain.”
 
BBC (UK) reports, “Early analysis of UK Omicron and Delta cases showed the vaccines were less effective at stopping the new variant. But a third booster prevents around 75 percent of people getting any COVID symptoms.”
 

Heroes of the Pandemic

 
Time Magazine’s (US) Person of the Year is Elon Musk for whatever reason. But read past the cover and find Time’s Heroes of The Year. “The vaccines that first arrested the spread of COVID-19—and that will almost surely be adjusted to thwart the Omicron variant and future mutations—were never a foregone conclusion. Far from it. They were, after all, produced by human beings, subject to the vagaries of systems and doubt. There were times in their careers when, deep in the work that would ultimately rescue humanity, Kizzmekia Corbett, Barney Graham, Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman felt as though the problems they faced were ones they alone cared about solving. But exposing the inner workings of how viruses survive and thrive is what made the COVID-19 vaccines possible…. Corbett, Graham, Kariko and Weissman achieved a breakthrough of singular importance, introducing an innovative and highly effective vaccine platform, based on mRNA, that will impact our health and well-being far beyond this pandemic.”
 

About Those Travel Bans

 
Travel bans, largely against Southern African countries remain in place despite the global spread of Omicron. Writing in The New York Times (US) Yale’s Saad B. Omer argues, “Travel bans can work under limited conditions. But the Omicron-related southern Africa travel ban imposed by the United States is too selective, focuses on many countries where the variant hasn’t been documented and excludes many more where the variant has been detected…. The travel ban is also not without cost. It could discourage countries from reporting new variants and emerging viruses.” He argues, “Rather than imposing arbitrary travel restrictions, countries can adopt less intrusive policies to slow the spread of the virus through international travel, including testing passengers before their departure or after arrival. Making proof of vaccination mandatory for international travel also helps limit importation of the virus…. The long-term solution, however, is to ensure that a high number of people around the world are vaccinated.”
 

Vaccine Apartheid

 
Reuters (UK) quotes a senior WHO official, Bruce Aylward, who said COVAX “suffered as high-income countries used their purchasing power to steer the flow of vaccines, while manufacturing countries prioritised domestic distribution…. ‘You can't vaccinate one part of the world and then make low-income countries wait…’”
 
The Washington Post (US) reports COVAX, “once pledged to deliver more than 2 billion shots worldwide by the end of the year. But as the days tick down, it is scrambling to deliver well under half that figure…. The initiative, led by the United Nations, is now racing to deliver 800 million doses by the end of the year…”
 
Watch a viral video that poignantly illustrates how Omicron got so bad through the analogy of a housefire. “We all live in the same house.”
 

Vaccine Diplomacy

 
The Daily Maverick (South Africa) reports, “China has offered 300,000 free COVID-19 vaccine doses to South Africa’s military as part of Beijing’s soft-power push for global influence. The military deny knowledge of the offer, but their own documents reveal recent discussions among high-ranking officials…. Analysts have remarked that China’s mask and vaccine diplomacy is a strategic opportunity for Beijing to bolster its global influence amidst growing tensions with the US, by leveraging existing bilateral relationships and building new ones. It also has the effect of shifting attention away from the narrative that China was the source of COVID-19 after being blamed for mishandling the initial outbreak…. As Western countries pushed African nations to the back of the vaccine line, China’s approach was more inclusive, with President Xi Jinping notably mentioning that African countries would be the first to benefit from future Chinese-manufactured vaccines.”
 

Vaccine Delivery Challenges

 
Stephanie Nolen reports in The New York Times (US) that “as supply has begun to sputter into something like a more reliable flow, other daunting obstacles are coming into focus. All of them are on view at and around Ngwerere [Zambia]…. Weak health care systems with limited infrastructure and technology, and no experience vaccinating adults, are trying to get shots into the arms of people who have far more pressing priorities. At the same time, the global flow of information, and deliberate misinformation, on social media is generating the same skepticism that has stymied vaccination efforts in the United States and other countries.”
 
NPR’s Goats and Soda Blog reports on challenges facing vaccinators in rural Peru: “two major challenges impeding vaccination are crazy rumors—a common one is that the injection plants a microchip in your arm—and religious groups that are opposed to vaccines…. Health workers have come to offer them the vaccine and the residents have flatly told them, no thank you, he says. ‘Do you know for why?’ Zambrano asks. ‘Because we are religious people. We believe in God, and we put our trust in God.’"
 
The Herald (Zimbabwe) reports, “The Restaurant Operators' Association of Zimbabwe (ROAZ) has offered the use of their members' premises as vaccination points countrywide.  In a statement yesterday, ROAZ president Mr. Bongai Zamchiya said the restaurant trade had been at the forefront of supporting the vaccination programme since its inception earlier this year and over 95 percent of staff in restaurants across the country were now fully vaccinated.”
 

COVID and Mental Health

 
The New York Times (US) reports on “a mood of exhaustion and simmering anger across the world two years after the deadly virus began to spread in China….” The Times reports on interviews across several countries that document the uncertainty, anxiety and depression brought on by the pandemic. “David Lazzari, the president of Italy’s psychologists’ guild, said recent studies in Italy showed the incidence of anxiety and depression had doubled since the pandemic began. For those under 18, levels had reached 25 percent. ‘One in four,’ he noted. ‘That’s very high.’” Similar stories unfold across the globe.
 

COVID Deaths and the Elderly

 
The New York Times (US) report on deaths from COVID in the US and the country passes 800,000 documented deaths. “Seventy-five percent of people who have died of the virus in the United States—or about 600,000 of the nearly 800,000 who have perished so far—have been 65 or older. One in 100 older Americans has died from the virus. For people younger than 65, that ratio is closer to 1 in 1,400.”
 

About That CDC Test Early in the Pandemic

 
A long in-depth Buzzfeed (US) investigation looked at documents from a US government investigation of a failed early COVID test developed by CDC. Buzzfeed examined reports from “the early days of the pandemic, when a series of decisions at a tiny lab in Atlanta, strapped for funds and left to take on a Herculean task, would set the course for a global pandemic to hobble a global superpower.” Buzzfeed reports, “The test catastrophe documented by the HHS investigation has led to unprecedented demands from former federal science officials to overhaul the CDC in order to avert another such disaster. This is a move that would essentially transform the country’s public health system.”
 

How the Pandemic Pushed More People into Poverty

 
Reuters (UK) reports, “More than half a billion people globally were pushed or sent further into extreme poverty last year as they paid for health costs out of their own pockets, with the COVID-19 pandemic expected to make things worse, the World Health Organization and the World Bank said…. Tedros urged governments to increase their focus on health care systems and stay on course towards universal health coverage, which the WHO defines as everyone getting access to health services they need without financial hardship.” Read the two reports here and here.
 

PPE Litter

 
A Nature Sustainability (UK) study reports on a sharp increase in PPE litter, including face masks and gloves across a number of countries. Writing in The Conversation (US), the authors note, “While face masks are an important protective measure against COVID-19, it quickly became clear that face mask litter was going to be a by-product of the pandemic…. Across the 11 countries in our study there was an almost 9,000 percent increase in masks as a proportion of all litter from September 2019 to October 2020 (over 80 fold).”