Covid Outbreak in Beijing Prompts Panic Buying and Lockdown Fears

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Supermarkets stocked up as long lines formed. The Chinese authorities ordered mass testing to contain a rising number of cases in an affluent district of the capital.

Shelves at a supermarket began emptying out as shoppers rushed to stock up on Sunday following a coronavirus outbreak in the Chaoyang District of Beijing. | Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters
BEIJING — Families in Beijing rushed to stock up on food. Supermarkets stayed open late. Residents endured long lines for mandatory testing. China’s stock markets plunged.

A fresh coronavirus outbreak in China’s capital has raised concerns that Beijing could become, after Shanghai, the next Chinese megacity to put life on hold to contain the spread of the Omicron variant. The central government has leaned heavily on lockdowns despite their high social and economic costs, in pursuit of the Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s “zero Covid” strategy of eliminating infections.

On Monday, the Beijing government said that 70 coronavirus cases had been found in Beijing since Friday. Nearly two-thirds have been in the district of Chaoyang, which ordered all 3.5 million residents to take three P.C.R. tests over the next five days. In other cities, mass testing in response to initial coronavirus cases has sometimes been a prelude to stringent lockdowns, like the four-week one in Shanghai that has kindled widespread complaints from residents there. » | Keith Bradsher and Chris Buckley | Sunday, April 24, 2022

Covid-19 : plus de 50% des Européens touchés par Omicron d'ici 2 mois, selon l'OMS

Le pic de contaminations ne serait toujours pas atteint, selon des spécialistes. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
LE FIGARO : Au rythme actuel de contamination, le variant, plus contagieux mais moins dangereux que Delta, pourrait toucher rapidement la moitié de la population du Vieux continent.

Plus de la moitié des Européens pourraient être touchés par le variant Omicron d'ici deux mois au vu du «raz de marée» actuel, a estimé mardi l'Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS), deux ans pile après l'annonce du premier décès officiellement lié au coronavirus en Chine. » | Par Le Figaro avec AFP | mardi 11 janvier 2022

Omicron could infect 50% of Europeans in next two months, says WHO: Europe director Hans Kluge demands immediate action to avoid Covid ‘tidal wave’ swamping health services »

300,000 New Infections: France Sees 'Supersonic Rise' in Covid Cases | DW News

Jan 6, 2022 • France recorded 332,200 new infections in a 24-hour period on Wednesday, which is Europe's highest single-day number of confirmed Covid-19 cases. It was also the first time that French cases breached the 300,000 mark as the country continues to break daily case records during an omicron-driven surge.

Although hospitals are preparing for a potential surge in patients, authorities are hopeful that France's high vaccination rate will prevent many people from developing severe infections, like those which were seen at the beginning of the pandemic. Nevertheless, the number of Covid hospitalizations has seen an uptick, with 72% of French ICU beds now occupied by people with the virus, The Associated Press reported.

The increased pressure on resources has prompted authorities to allow health workers who have tested positive to keep treating patients in the face of staff shortages. Early Thursday, French legislators in the lower house passed legislation that included a new "health pass" to limit unvaccinated people's access to public places including restaurants, regional trains and planes. The draft will now go to the Senate before a final vote in the National Assembly.


Présidentielle 2022: les propos de d’Emmanuel Macron enflamment la campagne : La petite phrase du président, qui dit vouloir «emmerder» les non-vaccinés, a suscité un tollé et provoqué un incident de séance à l’Assemblée. »

WHO Warns of a ‘Tsunami’ of Infections | Coronavirus Latest

Dec 30, 2021 • Surging COVID-19 infections are worrying governments around the globe. France has posted a record number of infections, more 200,000 in a single day. Italy, Ireland and Portugal have also announced record numbers of new cases. Officials say the skyrocketing infection rates are being driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.

While countries are still grappling with rising case numbers, health authorities are also under pressure to reduce the isolation requirements for people infected, or in contact with a positive case. The US recently shortened its quarantine period, and Germany's health minister says he's considering a similar move.

Saudi Arabia Will Require Booster Shots to Enter Many Public Places.

Checking for vaccine certificates or a negative coronavirus test in Riyadh, in June | Fayez Nureldine/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Staring down a rise in coronavirus cases that the health authorities have linked to the Omicron variant, Saudi Arabia will require people visiting stores, malls and restaurants to show proof of booster shots starting on Feb. 1.

The kingdom, as part of its effort to get its 35 million residents inoculated against the virus, already mandates proof of vaccination for those wishing to enter public places.

The move announced this week is an extension of a mandate the kingdom issued early this month when it said that starting in February, Saudi residents would no longer be considered fully vaccinated unless they had received a booster at least eight months after their second dose, and that they would need proof of a booster to enter government facilities, attend events and fly.

Citizens, residents and visitors are required to show scannable QR codes confirming their vaccination status through the government’s Tawakkalna app, which Saudi Arabia originally rolled out last year to help track coronavirus infections and has remade into a vaccine passport. » | Vivian Yee | Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Covid-19 : les restrictions se multiplient de nouveau dans le monde

LE FIGARO : LE POINT SUR LA SITUATION - Nouvelles mesures, nouveaux bilans et faits marquants : Le Figaro fait le point sur les dernières évolutions de la pandémie de Covid-19.

Alors qu'une étude a démontré que le risque d'être réinfecté est 5,4 fois plus élevé avec Omicron qu'avec Delta, à une semaine de Noël, les restrictions se multiplient de nouveau à travers le monde. Dès janvier, la France remplacera le passe sanitaire par un passe vaccinal, l'Irlande réinstaure un couvre-feu, le Danemark ferme sa vie culturelle... Le Figaro fait le point ce samedi 18 décembre sur les dernières informations liées à la pandémie de Covid-19.

Le risque de réinfection avec le variant Omicron est 5,4 fois plus élevé qu'avec le variant Delta, avance une étude de l'Imperial College de Londres rapportée par Reuters vendredi 17 décembre, assurant également qu'aucune preuve qu'Omicron ait une gravité inférieure à celle de Delta n'a été trouvée. Regarder la vidéo » | Par Le Figaro avec AFP | samedi 18 décembre 2021

Offices Shut and Holiday Parties Dim as a Familiar Feeling Sinks In

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Employers mandate boosters, postpone return dates and brace for an Omicron surge.

Many financial firms, like Morgan Stanley, had employees returning to the office this summer. | Jeenah Moon for The New York Times
It was three words that workers don’t hear every day from their bosses: “I was wrong.”

Morgan Stanley’s chief executive, James Gorman, asked this week about employees returning to the office, said his projection about the pandemic subsiding was off. “I thought we would have been out of it past Labor Day,” Mr. Gorman said on CNBC. “And we’re not.”

Office workers this week watched as events unfolded that were once familiar and jarring in their persistence: Covid case counts ballooned, and employer plans deflated. The United States is reporting an average of more than 120,000 new Covid cases each day, up 40 percent from two weeks ago, according to a New York Times database. New York City is experiencing a spike in cases larger than any since last winter. Employers that had been growing bolder in their plans — reopening offices, mandating or strongly suggesting that workers report back, promising holiday blowouts — are now scaling back their ambitions for in-person business and socializing. » | Emma Goldberg and Lananh Nguyen | Friday, December 17, 2021

German Government Considering Classifying UK 'Virus Variant Area', Meaning Travellers Would Be Required to Quarantine

THE GUARDIAN: The German government is looking into whether the UK should be classified as a “virus variant area”, reports Reuters, following the rapid rise of Omicron in the country.

Classification as a virus variant area would mean that travellers arriving in Germany from the UK would be required to quarantine for two weeks, even if they are vaccinated.

A spokesperson for the health ministry said the government is expected to make a decision later today. » |Miranda Bryant (now); Jedidajah Otte and Samantha Lock (earlier) | Friday, Dece,ber 17, 2021

Covid-19 : la France va restreindre l'accès aux voyageurs en provenance du Royaume-Uni

LE FIGARO : LE POINT SUR LA SITUATION - Nouvelles mesures, nouveaux bilans et faits marquants : Le Figaro fait le point sur les dernières évolutions de la pandémie de Covid-19.

Restrictions pour les voyageurs en provenance du Royaume-Uni, le Maroc ferme ses frontières, un nouveau retard pour le candidat vaccin Sanofi et 93 milliards de dollars pour soutenir les pays les plus pauvres... Le Figaro fait le point ce jeudi 16 décembre sur les dernières informations liées à la pandémie de Covid-19.

Nouveau tour de vis. La France va durcir les conditions d'accès pour les voyageurs en provenance du Royaume-Uni afin de limiter la propagation du variant Omicron, a annoncé jeudi le porte-parole du gouvernement Gabriel Attal. Concrètement, les voyageurs devront s'enregistrer et la validité des tests pour se rendre en France depuis le Royaume-Uni va être réduite de 48 heures à 24 heures. Les motifs de voyage seront en outre «limités aux résidents (français) et à leurs familles», a-t-il précisé sur BFMTV et RMC. Les déplacements de «tourisme ou professionnels pour des personnes qui ne sont pas résidentes en France seront limités». » | Par Le Figaro avec AFP | jeudi 16 décembre 2021

France to tighten Covid restrictions on travel from Omicron-hit UK: Government says travel will be limited to ‘essential purposes’ for vaccinated and unvaccinated »

Covid: UK Alert Level Raised to Four due to Omicron Spread

BBC: The UK's coronavirus alert level has been raised from three to four due to the spread of Omicron, the UK's chief medical officers have said.

The last time the UK was at level four was in May.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to make a televised statement on Covid at 20:00 GMT on Sunday.

He is expected to provide an update on the booster programme. The BBC has been told there will not be any more new rules announced. » | Francesca Gillett, BBC News | Sunday, December 12, 2021

Royaume-Uni : le niveau d'alerte Covid relevé en raison d'une forte poussée du variant Omicron : Le niveau passe de trois à quatre, ce qui est le deuxième niveau le plus élevé et indique que «la transmission est élevée et que la pression sur les services de santé est généralisée et importante ou en augmentation». »

UK’s Progress on Covid Now Squandered, Warns Top Scientist

THE GUARDIAN: Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome Trust, suggests emergence of Omicron variant means pandemic is far from over

Farrar warned that rich countries had ‘a very blinkered domestic focus’ over Covid. Photograph: Nic Bothma/EPA
The emergence of the Omicron variant shows that the world is “closer to the start of the pandemic than the end”, one of Britain’s most senior scientific figures has warned, as he lamented a lack of political leadership over Covid.

Sir Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust who stepped down as a government scientific adviser last month, said the progress in combatting Covid-19 since its emergence was “being squandered”.

Writing in the Observer, he said rich countries had been taking “a very blinkered domestic focus, lulled into thinking that the worst of the pandemic was behind us”. He said while he was cautiously hopeful that current vaccines would protect against severe illness from Omicron, that may not be true for future variants.

“The longer this virus continues to spread in largely unvaccinated populations globally, the more likely it is that a variant that can overcome our vaccines and treatments will emerge,” he writes. “If that happens, we could be close to square one. » | Michael Savage, Robin McKie | Saturday, December 4, 2021

Boris Johnson, the 'Clown' - Mistakes, Misjudgments, U-turns and Lies

Dec 4, 2021 • Boris Johnson, surely the worst prime minister ever, is not only dishonest but also incompetent making mistakes, misjudgments and U-turns almost every day.

Brexit, confrontation with the EU and especially with France, failure to resolve the Northern Ireland issue, failing to agree any serious new trade deals and the complete mishandling of the pandemic, whereby we have the second or third highest levels of new cases almost every day amounting to 40 - 50,000 cases per day. In three weeks, that’s a million cases! These are all problems caused, or made worse, by the prime minister.

Unlike countries throughout the EU such as Italy and France, this government half-heartedly brings in a new law making it obligatory to wear a mask in shops and on public transport. The public, seeing how the prime minister and Conservative politicians flout such regulations do the same.

In the past week Johnson has been called a liar in Parliament and the French president has described him as a clown running a circus and a knucklehead.

Covid Surge in Germany: Is a Lockdown Inevitable? | DW News

As Germany faces record-breaking infection numbers and fears of the omicron variant abound, Angela Merkel's designated successor Olaf Scholz is calling for a general vaccine mandate. Talking to Germany's Bild television on Tuesday, the chancellor-in-waiting said he would like to see mandatory vaccinations "not too far away in the future, so I suggest beginning of February or March." At the same time, he said that the decision would be made in the parliament, and that it would be a "matter of conscience" for individual lawmakers. Germany's Federal Medical Association also called for a vaccine mandate to put a stop to the "endless loop of lockdowns." It urged the German government to make arrangements that would apply to "all adult citizens with no medical contra-indications against a vaccine." The question of mandatory vaccination is considered controversial in Germany, partly due to forced medical treatments during the Nazi-era. Separately, spokesman for the outgoing German government Steffen Seibert said a decision on the vaccine mandate would be made "soon."

According to Reuters news agency, Scholz also supported the idea of introducing so-called 2G rules for customers in retail stores, meaning they must be either vaccinated ("geimpft") or have recovered ("genesen") from COVID-19. The rules would not apply in supermarkets or drugstores. Reuters said that Scholz had pledged to make changes to the Infection Protection Act to provide "states with high infection rates with a suitable set of instruments." Scholz also introduced Major General Carsten Breuer as the head of a planned COVID crisis team to be set up when the new coalition government commences work. The team is to primarily speed up Germany's vaccination program, including the administering of booster injections. States governed by premiers from Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) called for the the protection given by vaccination to be officially recognized only for six months, the daily Rheinische Post reported, citing the waning efficacy of the vaccines after that period.

Also on Tuesday, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the "emergency brake" imposed by the federal government from April to June was compatible with the constitution. Under the measure, districts and regions were required to implement curfews, contact restrictions and other curbs when the infection rate rose above certain levels. Several state premiers have called for similar nationwide measures to be reintroduced as Germany struggles to contain a fourth wave of the pandemic that has recently been additionally complicated by the advent of the omicron variant.

L’Angleterre sonne l’alarme et renoue avec le port du masque obligatoire

Lors d’une conférence de presse, samedi à Londres, le premier ministre britannique, Boris Johnson, a annoncé un durcissement des mesures sanitaires dans le pays. POOL/REUTERS
LE FIGARO : Critiqué pour avoir été lent à réagir au début de l’épidémie, le gouvernement britannique a voulu, cette fois, réagir vite.

Encore traumatisés par un Noël 2020 plombé par la fulgurante apparition du «variant anglais», les Britanniques s’alarment aujourd’hui pour les fêtes qui viennent. Boris Johnson les a assurés que la période serait plus festive que l’année dernière mais toute la presse faisait sa une sur de possibles projets de vacances torpillés. Et l’île recommence à se barricader. Face à la menace du variant Omicron, Boris Johnson s’est résolu à prendre des mesures qu’il s’interdisait trois jours auparavant.

L’apparition dans le royaume de trois cas Omicron - tous liés à un voyage en Afrique australe -, a tiré la sonnette d’alarme. Le premier ministre Boris Johnson a annoncé samedi durcir les mesures d’entrée en Angleterre à partir de mardi. Tous les voyageurs entrant dans le pays devront passer un test PCR deux jours après leur arrivée et s’isoler dans l’attente des résultats. Les mesures aux frontières avaient été relâchées cet été, seul un test antigénique était requis sans nécessité d’isolement. Londres a aussi mis sur une «liste rouge» dix pays d’Afrique australe. Par ailleurs, le port du masque va de nouveau être obligatoire dans les magasins et les transports en commun. » | Par Arnaud De La Grange | dimanche 28 novembre 2021

Réservé aux abonnés

Boris Johnson Tightens Rules on Travel and Mask-wearing over Omicron Concerns

THE GUARDIAN: Travellers to UK must take PCR tests and masks to be made mandatory in shops and on public transport

Boris Johnson has announced fresh measures to curb the spread of coronavirus including mandatory masks in shops and PCR tests for travellers entering the UK after two cases of the Omicron variant were detected in the country.

Amid mounting global concern over Omicron, named a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization on Friday, the prime minister set out a series of steps the UK is taking to maximise its defence against Covid-19.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, Johnson said anyone arriving in the UK will be asked to take a PCR test for Covid-19 on the second day and must self-isolate until they provide a negative test. The rules on face coverings in shops and on public transport will also be tightened, he said.

Contacts of all confirmed cases of people infected with the Omicron variant will have to self-isolate for 10 days. Health officials are also examining the case for widening access to the booster vaccine programme, he added.

The measures will be reviewed in three weeks. With video » | Andrew Gregory | Saturday, November 27, 2021

Covid-19: la présence du variant Omicron se confirme en Europe : LE POINT SUR LA SITUATION - Nouvelles mesures, nouveaux bilans et faits marquants: un point sur les dernières évolutions de la pandémie de Covid-19 dans le monde. »

New ‘Variant of Concern’ Fuels Global Fear of Another Virus Surge

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Scientists do not yet know how dangerous the new Omicron variant is, but its many mutations set off alarms, lowering hopes of putting the pandemic in the past.

The world reacted with alarm on Friday to the highly mutated new coronavirus variant discovered in southern Africa, as the United States, the European Union and nations across the globe imposed new travel restrictions, financial markets swooned and visions of finally emerging from the pandemic started to dim.

Just two days after the world learned of the variant, the World Health Organization officially labeled it a “ variant of concern,” its most serious category — the first since the Delta variant, which emerged a year ago. The designation means that the variant has mutations that might make it more contagious or more virulent, or make vaccines and other preventive measures less effective — though none of those effects has yet been established.

After an emergency meeting, the W.H.O. warned in a statement that “preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant” in people who have already had Covid-19. In keeping with the practice of naming variants for letters of the Greek alphabet, it dubbed the new one Omicron. » | Richard Pérez-Peña and Jason Horowitz | Published: Friday, November 26, 2021; updated: Saturday, November 27, 2021

Germany finds a suspected case of the variant. »

Two cases of Omicron Covid variant identified in UK: The B.1.1.529 variant, described in Britain as ‘the most worrying we’ve seen’, was first found in southern Africa »