The Omicron variant is now largely in the majority in the United States, where President Joe Biden is due to announce new restrictions on Tuesday, as is the new Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Germany, with no containment on the agenda.
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Omicron accounted for 73.2% of new COVID-19 infections in the United States in the week ending December 18, according to data from U.S. health officials released Monday evening. The previous week the figure was only 12.6%.
Omicron’s proportion hovers around 95% of cases in one group of northwestern states (Oregon, Washington and Idaho) and another in the southeast, including Florida, according to the Centers for Prevention and Control. Against Disease (CDC).
The United States is the most bereaved country in the world in absolute terms, with more than 807,000 dead, and the White House adviser on the health crisis, Dr. Anthony Fauci, had announced Sunday “weeks or months difficult as we approach winter ”.
It is in this context that Joe Biden must announce on Tuesday new “measures” aimed at “increasing access to screening” for Covid, according to his spokesperson, Jen Psaki. The president will insist on “the risks run by unvaccinated individuals”, but no “confinement of the country” is planned, she said.
The Democrat, elected largely on the promise of ending the epidemic, does not have many levers at the federal level. And the few restrictive measures he has taken, including vaccination in large companies, come up against legal proceedings and fuel the speeches of the Republican opposition on an attack on individual freedoms.
Restrictions in Germany
In Germany, the government is preparing to tighten health restrictions on the New Year, according to a project consulted on Monday by AFP and which is still to be discussed Tuesday during a crisis meeting between the government and representatives of the 16 German regions , followed by a press conference by Olaf Scholz.
From December 28, excluding children under 14, people vaccinated or cured will not be able to welcome more than 10 guests into their homes and provided that they are all immunized, according to the text. Non-vaccinated people are only allowed to invite a maximum of two people from one household.
Sporting events, such as Bundesliga football matches, will take place “without spectators” from December 28 and until further notice, as will cultural events and concerts, according to a second amended text released in the evening. Discos and dance clubs will be closed.
Unlike neighboring Netherlands, Germany does not plan to close non-essential stores, cinemas or restaurants, considering it sufficient to limit their access to people who have been vaccinated or cured.
The largest European economy has been affected since the beginning of the autumn by a virulent resumption of the epidemic linked to the Delta variant. The level of contamination is between 30,000 and 50,000 additional cases every 24 hours.
The group of experts advising the government sounded the alarm on Sunday in the face of Omicron’s progress and called for further reductions in contacts “as soon as possible”.
2022 target
The United States and Germany are following in the footsteps of many countries putting the brakes on the epidemic.
The Labor Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced on Monday evening the cancellation of the festivities planned in the British capital for the New Year, as did Morocco, which also instituted a curfew between midnight and 6 a.m.
To protect oneself, it is necessary “in certain cases to cancel an event”, exposed Monday the boss of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, because “a canceled event is better than a life less” . He launched the goal of an endpoint to the Covid for 2022 “by ensuring that 70% of the population of each country is vaccinated” by mid-2022.
Alongside him, WHO Chief Scientific Officer Dr Soumya Swaminathan said early data from South Africa showed Omicron-related hospitalizations were still lower than during previous Delta waves.
It is “still too early to conclude that this is a moderate variant,” she concluded, however, of this strain first detected in South Africa and Botswana in November and which presents multiple mutations.
Moderna assured that a booster made with a full dose of its vaccine, instead of a half dose as is currently the case, further increased its effectiveness against this variant.
On Monday, the European Union authorized a 5th anti-Covid vaccine, that of the American Novavax, using a more conventional technology than those used for previously authorized vaccines.
Because of Omicron, the World Economic Forum, which was scheduled to meet January 17-21 in Davos, Switzerland, has been postponed.
The pandemic has killed at least 5.35 million people worldwide since the WHO office in China reported the onset of the disease at the end of December 2019, according to a report established by AFP on Monday, without doubt lower than reality.