Omicron Covid variant DOES spread rapidly and can be transmitted between fully-vaccinated people
Omicron Covid variant DOES spread rapidly and can be transmitted between fully-vaccinated people, says UK government amid fears it makes jabs 40% less effective
Boris Johnson said new super-mutant variant Omicron ‘might reduce the effectiveness of vaccines over time’Prime Minister said he was planning new measures to combat the new strain, including mandatory PCR testProfessor Chris Whitty said it is ‘inevitable’ Omicron variant will spread across the world over the next daysLast night the World Health Organisation branded the so-called ‘Omicron’ mutation a ‘variant of concern’ Countries including Britain and the US moved to shut their borders to six countries from southern Africa The variant’s sudden appearance this week sparked panic in Whitehall circles about its vaccine resistance
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The Omicron Covid-19 variant does spread rapidly and can be transmitted between full-vaccinated people, the UK government said at a press conference tonight.
It comes amid fears the new super-mutant strain makes jabs 40 per cent less effective after Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the variant ‘might in part reduce the effectiveness of vaccines over time’.
Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said it is not yet clear how effective the vaccine will be as protection against the variant – but said those who are vaccinated or receive the booster jab will be less likely to become seriously ill.
Mr Johnson urged people to come forward for their jab and said the booster campaign would get a ‘boost’ by reducing the gap between second doses and booster.
Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told the Downing Street press conference vaccine makers are already looking at how they can make them more effective against emerging variants, and that a jab designed to specifically target the Omicron variant could be created in ‘about 100 days’.
Meanwhile the prime minister announced new measures to combat the new strain be reviewed in three weeks, including mandatory PCR tests for all arriving international travellers and ramping up the use of face masks.
Professor Whitty warned the spread of the Omicron variant across the world over the next few days was ‘inevitable’ but added the majority of cases in the UK remain to be of the Delta variant.
He warned there is currently significant rates of transmission among young people but noted that rates among people aged over 60 and vulnerable groups are improving, meaning hospitalisations and deaths continue to decrease.
Hours earlier, the health secretary confirmed that two people tested positive with the new variant in Essex and Nottingham, that the cases are linked and related to travel from southern Africa.
Last night the World Health Organisation branded the so-called ‘Omicron’ mutation a ‘variant of concern’ as countries including Britain and the US moved to shut their borders to six countries from southern Africa, the area of suspected origin.
The Omicron Covid-19 variant does spread and can be transmitted between full-vaccinated people, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at a press conference tonight
Cases of Omicron have already been picked up in South Africa, Botswana, Hong Kong, Israel and Belgium. It is not yet known whether the variant arrived in the Netherlands yesterday but Dutch authorities are sequencing passengers’ tests
Chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty said anti-viral pills for Covid-19, which were approved by the UK earlier this month, need a ‘rethink’ because of the new variant.
He told the Downing Street press conference: ‘On the anti-virals, we are going to have to do a bit of a rethink on the basis of this new variant just to be confident we’ve got the right indications from it.
‘There’s a variety of ways you could use it in different ways, and what we need to make sure is whatever stock we’ve got of these, what appear to be highly effective drugs, that we use in the most effective way and for the right people.
‘Where you are in the pathway right from the very beginning… working out their place, we do need to think through and I think we probably need to do a rethink of it just to make sure with the new variant we’re targeting in the right direction.’
Sir Patrick said vaccine makers are already looking at how they can make them more effective against emerging variants, and that a jab designed to specifically target the Omicron variant could be created in ‘about 100 days’.
He told the Downing Street press conference: ‘I think it’s important to recognise there are three ways in which this can be done and the companies are thinking about this. The first is the boosters will give high enough antibody coverage that actually that’s going to be enough to cover this.
‘That’s the first situation and needs to be tested. But that looks like something that anyway is going to give protection, whether there’s more needed on top of that we’ll have to see.
‘The second is that vaccine manufacturers have been producing broader vaccines anyway to get broader coverage across potential new variants. So those are in the pipeline.
‘Then a couple of companies have already said they could tweak their existing vaccines and get a new vaccine out specifically against this in about 100 days.
‘Those are the sort of three scenarios, clearly the one which is the one to really go for now is boost, because it is the case that as you keep boosting the vaccine, you get slightly broader coverage because the immune system knows it needs to get broader.
‘Because the antibody levels are so high, it actually causes enough coverage of other variants to be effective.’ He added it is expected the variant will spread.
Sir Patrick also laid out ‘three things’ that need to be done in the face of the new variant. He said: ‘The first is to try to limit the number of cases that enter the country from places that have got lots of cases. And that means trying to detect people and prevent them from spreading in the country.
‘The second is to make sure that when we do have cases in the country, and we will have cases just as other countries will have, that we try and limit spread in the country and that means detecting those cases, making sure the contacts are identified.
‘And the third is to bolster our defences. And the defences are first and foremost to make sure that the vaccines are boosted because very high levels of antibody coverage will create a higher proportion of people protected even against a variant.’
Symptomatic Covid cases rose by nearly a fifth last week with more than 76,000 Britons falling ill each day, according to the ZOE symptom-tracking study
Office for National Statistics (ONS) data estimated around 862,300 people caught the virus on any given day in the week up to November 20, up 4.5 per cent on the 824,900 the week before
Britain has sequenced two cases of the Omicron variant in Nottingham and Chelmsford, Sajid Javid said today
Between November 11 and November 26, there were 48 direct flights from Cape Town and Johannesburg to London Heathrow. During this period, there were two British Airways flights and one Virgin Atlantic flight per day. If each plane carried 300 passengers, that could mean there have been 14,400 arrivals from South Africa since Omicron was first detected
In an attempt to slow the spread, the Prime Minister announced ‘temporary and precautionary’ measures to be reviewed in three weeks, alongside a ‘boost’ to the booster campaign.
Face coverings will become compulsory in shops and on public transport from ‘next week’, a statement from 10 Downing Street said.
The statement, which was issued following the Prime Minister’s press conference, said: ‘Face coverings will be made compulsory in shops and on public transport from next week. All hospitality settings will be exempt.’
Boris Johnson said the exact rules on face coverings will be set out soon by Health Secretary Sajid Javid.
He told the Downing Street press conference: ‘On face coverings, what we’re looking at is retail and transport, just going back to a position where you have to wear them in retail settings or on public transport. But the Health Secretary Saj (Javid) will be setting out more in the course of the next day or so.’
Following the announcement on face coverings becoming compulsory on public transport and in shops, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham tweeted: ‘This is right but shows why they shouldn’t have been relaxed.
‘It will now be harder, and take longer, to get levels of compliance up to where we need them to be.’
Boris Johnson also told a hastily arranged news conference the government would introduce a new testing regime.
Omicron contacts will have to self-isolate and new arrivals will have to quarantine until they test negative for coronavirus, after two cases of the concerning new Omicron variant were detected in the UK.
Currently, all Britons and foreigners entering the UK are required to take a PCR test on day two after their arrival.
The new rules add the requirement for isolation pending a negative result, significantly toughening the regime, in a bid to curb the spread of the new strain.
‘I very much hope that we will find that we continue to be in a strong position and we can lift these measures again,’ Johnson said, promising a review in three weeks, before Christmas.
‘But right now this is a responsible course of action,’ he said, vowing to protect Britons’ hopes for a more festive Christmas this year as he indicated no further nationwide lockdown is coming.
Meanwhile Professor Whitty made a Christmas plea for the country to ‘raise a glass’ to the scientists who have produced the vaccines.
He said: ‘If I can make one Christmas plea? It would be that when people raise their glasses this Christmas, they do so to the extraordinary scientists who produce the vaccines, the diagnostics, the drugs which will allow this Christmas, if possible, to be in a very different place to what it would have been without them.’
Meanwhile Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola will face travel restrictions from Sunday, when they will join South Africa and five other neighbouring nations on England’s red list.
Mr Johnson admitted the latest restrictions on travel ‘sound tough’, but added: ‘That’s the way it’s got to be.’
In response to a question about whether the Government could have moved faster to close borders to protect the country from the new Omicron variant, Boris Johnson told a Downing Street press conference: ‘I really don’t know how we could’ve acted faster.
‘We got the news out about it on Thursday and we put quite a lot of southern African countries on the red list yesterday, and some more today.’
He said: ‘We need to take targeted and proportionate measures now as a precaution while we find out more.
‘First we need to slow down the seeding of the variant in this country, we need to buy time for our scientists to understand exactly what we’re dealing with, and for us to get more people vaccinated, and above all to get more people boosted.’
But the Prime Minister said border measures can ‘only ever minimise and delay the arrival of a new variant rather than stop it all together’, so all contacts with a suspected case of the new variant will have to isolate for 10 days, regardless of their vaccination status.
‘We will also go further in asking all of you to help contain the spread of this variant by tightening up the rules on face coverings in shops and on public transport,’ Mr Johnson said.
While the effectiveness of vaccines against Omicron is currently unclear, Mr Johnson said there are ‘good reasons for believing they will provide at least some measure of protection’.
He said ‘we’re going to boost the booster campaign’ by asking the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to consider giving boosters to ‘as wide a group as possible as well as reducing the gap’ between second doses and the booster.
Professor Whitty said the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation will now need to decide whether to extend the booster vaccine down to adults age 18, and whether a second dose should be offered to children aged 12-15 who decided with their families to get the first dose of the vaccine.
