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 With authorities around the world scrambling to contain Omicron,
Biden warned in no uncertain terms that infections will rise this
winter.
"We're going to fight this variant with science and speed, not chaos
and confusion," he said, speaking at the National Institutes of
Health medical research facility in Maryland.
New York has found five cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant,
its governor said, becoming the fourth U.S. state to detect the
variant and bringing the total number of infections in the country
to eight.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul told a news conference that one of
the cases involved a 67-year-old Long Island woman with mild
symptoms who had recently returned from South Africa.
The woman had some vaccination history but it was not yet known how
many doses she had received. Further information was not yet
available on the other four people, all New York City residents,
Hochul said.
The other U.S. states that have found Omicron cases are California,
Colorado and Minnesota, one in each state. In all three cases, the
patients were fully vaccinated and developed mild symptoms.
In California and Colorado, the patients had recently returned from
trips to southern Africa and had not gotten booster doses. The case
in Minnesota is the first known community transmission within the
United States.
The patient in Minnesota had recently travelled to New York City for
an anime convention, prompting the city to launch contact tracing to
try to contain the spread.
“We are aware of a case of the Omicron variant identified in
Minnesota that is associated with travel to a conference in New York
City, and we should assume there is community spread of the variant
in our city," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said ahead of
Hochul's announcement.
Much remains unknown about Omicron, which was first detected in
southern Africa last month and has been reported in at least two
dozen countries, just as parts of Europe were already grappling with
a wave of infections of the Delta variant.
Under Biden's plan, the United States will require inbound
international passengers to be tested for COVID-19 within one day of
departure, regardless of vaccination status. Mask requirements on
airplanes, trains and public transportation vehicles will be
extended to March 18.
The U.S. government will require private health insurers to
reimburse their 150 million customers for 100% of the cost of
over-the-counter, at-home COVID-19 tests, administration officials
said, and make 50 million more tests available free through rural
clinics and health centers for the uninsured.
Less than 60% of the U.S. population, or 196 million people, have
been fully vaccinated, one of the lowest rates among wealthy
nations.
THE ECONOMY
Fears about the Omicron variant have pounded financial markets and
created doubts about the speed of the global economic recovery as
the pandemic rages on. Shares fell on Thursday, and crude oil
futures extended losses.
The variant could slow global economic growth by exacerbating supply
chain problems and depressing demand, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet
Yellen told the Reuters Next conference on Thursday.
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"There's a lot of uncertainty,
but it could cause significant problems. We're
still evaluating that," she said.
Eager to avoid derailing a fragile recovery of
Europe's biggest economy, Germany had kept
businesses open to the almost 69% of the
population that is fully vaccinated as well as
those with proof of having recovered from the
virus.
But on Thursday, the country announced it would
bar the unvaccinated from all but essential
businesses such as grocery stores and
pharmacies, while legislation to make
vaccination mandatory will be drafted for early
next year.
"We have understood that the situation is very
serious," Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news
conference.
A nationwide vaccination mandate could take
effect from February 2022 after it is debated in
the Bundestag and after guidance from Germany's
Ethics Council, she said.
HIGH TRANSMISSION
The European Union's public health agency said
the variant could be responsible for more than
half of all COVID infections in Europe within a
few months.
A group of South African health bodies said on
Thursday their latest findings indicated the
variant posed a threefold higher risk of
reinfection than the currently dominant Delta
variant and the Beta strain.
The country also said it was seeing an increase
in COVID-19 reinfections in patients contracting
Omicron - with people who have already had the
illness getting infected again - in a way that
it did not see with other variants.
Global travel curbs accelerated on Thursday in
response to the threat from Omicron.
In the Netherlands, health authorities called
for pre-flight COVID-19 tests for all travel
from outside the European Union, after it turned
out that most of the passengers who tested
positive after arriving on two flights from
South Africa on Nov. 26 had been vaccinated.
Graphic: Omicron variant map: https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-VARIANT/zdvxonlxxpx/Omicron.jpg
Russia has imposed a two-week quarantine for
travellers from some African countries including
South Africa, the Interfax news agency said,
quoting a senior official. Hong Kong extended a
travel ban to more countries and Norway, among
others, re-introduced travel restrictions.
 Amid all the new restrictions, Europe's largest
budget airline, Ryanair, said it expected a
challenging time at Christmas, although it was
still optimistic about summer demand.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Ingrid
Melander and Sonya Hepinstall; Editing by Lisa
Shumaker and Stephen Coates)
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