The discovery of a new and potentially more transmissible coronavirus variant by South African health authorities has sparked a forceful reaction across the world. An epidemiologist from South Africa brings you an overview of the variant.

Omicron, a new COVID-19 variant sparks travel bans, worries scientists

It is a race against time for the scientists to try and understand the implications of what the new mutant variant called the Omicron variant of the coronavirus actually mean. Ever since the virus was detected in South Africa, it has set alarm bells all around the world. In an exclusive interview, WION's Kalden Ongmu spoke to the chairman of the South African medical association Angelique Coetzee who has been treating the new cases in her country, listen in.

Top South African medical expert sheds light on Covid-19 variant Omicron

Major oil producers could pause all plans to add crude supply as uncertainty looms over the severity of the new covid-19 strain. US WTI crude futures up 1.4% to $70.94/ barrel.

Major oil producers to pause plans to add crude supply, uncertainty due to Omicron

With the growing number of companies reporting cases of the Omicron variant, nations are shutting borders, covid-19 restrictions are returning, global markets are bracing for a crucial week ahead. WION reporters are tracking all the latest developments of the new deadly variant.

WION tracks spread of new covid-19 variant Omicron

Following the outbreak of the Omicron variant in Africa, India has come forward to support the affected countries in the continent. The Indian ministry of external affairs offered support by issuing a statement that highlighted made-in India vaccines will be supplied to the affected African countries.

India to supply indigenous covid-19 vaccines to Africa to fight Omicron

The new covid-19 variant has spread across the world, in a bid to combat the Omicron virus, Australia has shelved its plans to open international borders. It comes at a time when the country has confirmed five cases of this new variant.

Australia shelves plan to reopen borders amid Omicron scare

WHO has skipped Greek letters 'Xi' & 'Nu' to name the new Wuhan Virus variant 'Omicron'. Was this a deliberate omission? What is the health body saying in its defence? Palki Sharma gets you a report.

Gravitas: WHO skips 'XI' & 'NU', names new variant 'Omicron'; How deadly is the new variant?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) chief- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pleaded with countries during the World Health Assembly to do their part to tackle vaccine inequality amid the risk of Omicron variant spreading globally.

WHO chief raises alarm over vacccine equity amid risk of Omicron spreading globally

The World Health Organization has declared the recently-discovered B.1.1.529 strain of COVID-19, to be a variant of concern and renamed it Omicron. The variant was first detected in southern Africa. WION brings you some of the FAQs about this new strain.

What do we know about the Omicron variant?

Amid the fears of the global risk of new covid variant, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has stated that the Omicron variant is likely to spread internationally, posing a "very high" global risk of infection surges that could have "severe consequences".

Covid News: 'Risk related to Omicron very high,' says WHO

OPEC and its allies have postponed technical meetings to later this week, giving themselves more time to assess the impact of the new Omicron coronavirus variant on oil demand and prices.

OPEC postpones technical meetings to assess Omicron impact

With Europe facing a massive surge in covid-19 cases, the European Commission chief says the world is in a race against time to understand the new covid variant.

Omicron variant adds to Europe's woes, UK calls G7 meeting to discuss new covid-19 variant

India has issued fresh guidelines for international travellers as the Omicron variant triggers alarm across the world. It has issued a list of 'at-risk' nations, keeping in mind the evolving situation, countries in the categories are nations in Europe including the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh and more.

India issues advisory for international passengers amid fears of 'Omicron'

South Africa has alerted the world with the new covid variant Omicron due to which many countries have imposed a travel ban on several African countries. South African president Cyril Ramaphosa has now come out and criticised the West for this move.

Covid variant Omicron: 'No scientific justification for curbs,' South African prez Cyril Ramaphosa

The Delta variant continues to wreak havoc across the United States, top health experts have now warned of a looming Omcron wave that could sweep across the US.

United States: Omicron to dominate new cases in coming weeks

As the world grapples with Omicron, the WHO has warned the nations about the threat of the new variant. Omicron has been found to be spread at a faster pace than the previous variant.

WHO: Omicron cases doubling at a faster pace, severity yet to be studied

The Israel government add 10 new countries to the list of destinations designated “red” due to high COVID-19 infections rates, as Israel braces for a wave of new cases driven by the Omicron variant of covid-19.

Israel all set to expand no-fly list amid Omicron scare

Germany's health minister has warned that country must brace for a massive fifth wave due to the new Omicron variant. Germany has been battered by a recent rise in Covid-19 cases and has imposed restrictions following it.

Germany faces massive Omicron wave, health minister issues warning

Around 5.3 million people have died due to different strains of coronavirus, more than 27,000 cases of the new Omicron strain have also been recorded in almost 91 countries.

More than 27,000 Omicron cases in 91 countries: Reports

World Health Organization warned the nations to not dismiss the Omicron variant of COVID-19 as mild. WHO also added that vaccines may have reduced effectiveness.

WHO: World should not dismiss Omicron variant as mild

While 70% of Germans have already received double doses of vaccine, COVID-19 cases are still surging due to the spread of the Omicron variant. Berlin braces for a massive fifth wave as health restrictions have been re-imposed.

Germany faces massive fifth wave of COVID-19 due to Omicron variant

As the omicron coronavirus variant takes hold across the world, Israel has added the United States to its no-fly list. Canada, Germany, Turkey and Morocco are also added to the list.

Israel bans travel to US amid Omicron surge | Covid-19 News Updates

With the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 spreading its wings around the globe, the UK reports record-shattering cases amid festive season approaching.

Omicron variant spreads across the world, with UK COVID-19 cases surging to a record high

Despite taking several measures to keep a check on the spread of Omicron, the total number of cases has reached to 101, with western state of Maharashtra accounting for 1/3 of the cases.

India: Omicron cases detected in 11 states, tally rises to 101

For the second year in a row, it's a sombre Christmas in Europe. Just a week ahead of Christmas, parts of Europe are once again going into lockdown mode and tightening covid restrictions as Omicron cases drive up cases and hospitalisations.

Europe stares at a sombre Christmas in the wake of Omicron surge | Covid-19 News

Omicron variant spreads across the world, scientists are now rewriting their expectations. In United Kingdom, the new variant is now all set to become the most dominant one.

UK witnesses highest ever daily Covid cases amid Omicron spread

A growing body of preliminary research suggests the COVID vaccines used in most of the world offer almost no defense against becoming infected by the highly contagious omicron variant.

All vaccines still seem to provide a significant degree of protection against serious illness from omicron, which is the most crucial goal. But only the Pfizer and Moderna shots, when reinforced by a booster, appear to have initial success at stopping infections, and these vaccines are unavailable in most of the world.

The other shots — including those from AstraZeneca, Johnson &amp; Johnson and vaccines manufactured in China and Russia — do little to nothing to stop the spread of omicron, early research shows. And because most countries have built their inoculation programs around these vaccines, the gap could have a profound impact on the course of the pandemic.

A global surge of infections in a world where billions of people remain unvaccinated not only threatens the health of vulnerable individuals but also increases the opportunity for the emergence of yet more variants. The disparity in the ability of countries to weather the pandemic will almost certainly deepen. And the news about limited vaccine efficacy against omicron infection could depress demand for vaccination throughout the developing world, where many people are already hesitant or preoccupied with other health problems.

Most evidence so far is based on laboratory experiments, which do not capture the full range of the body’s immune response, and not from tracking the effect on real-world populations. The results are striking, however.

The Pfizer and Moderna shots use the new mRNA technology, which has consistently offered the best protection against infection with every variant. All of the other vaccines are based on older methods of triggering an immune response.

The Chinese vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac — which make up almost half of all shots delivered globally — offer almost zero protection from omicron infection. The great majority of people in China have received these shots, which are also widely used in low- and middle-income countries such as Mexico and Brazil.

A preliminary effectiveness study in Britain found that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine showed no ability to stop omicron infection six months after vaccination. Ninety percent of vaccinated people in India received this shot, under the brand name Covishield; it has also been widely used across much of sub-Saharan Africa, where COVAX, the global COVID vaccine program, has distributed 67 million doses of it to 44 countries.

Researchers predict that Russia’s Sputnik vaccine, which is also being used in Africa and Latin America, will show similarly dismal rates of protection against omicron.

Demand for the Johnson &amp; Johnson vaccine had been surging in Africa, because its single-shot delivery regimen makes it easy to deliver in low-resource settings. But it too has shown a negligible ability to block omicron infection.

Antibodies are the first line of defense induced by vaccines. But the shots also stimulate the growth of T cells, and preliminary studies suggest that these T cells still recognize the omicron variant, which is important in preventing severe disease.

“What you lose first is protection against asymptomatic mild infection, what you retain much better is protection against severe disease and death,” said John Moore, a virus expert at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. He called it “a silver lining” that omicron so far appears less lethal than the delta variant.

But this protection will not be enough to prevent omicron from causing global disruption, said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for International and Strategic Studies.

“The sheer scale of infection will overwhelm health systems, simply because the denominator will be potentially so big,” he said. “If you have a burst of infection worldwide, a shock, what does the world look like on other side of it? Is it, ‘The war is over,’ or, ‘The war has just entered another phase’? We haven’t begun thinking about any of that.”

People with breakthrough cases may experience only asymptomatic infection or mild illness, but they can pass the virus to unvaccinated people, who could fall more severely ill, and become a source of new variants.

Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, said that more data was needed before drawing conclusions about vaccines’ effectiveness against omicron — and that accelerated vaccination should continue to be the focus of pandemic response.

Preliminary data from South Africa suggest that with omicron, there is a much higher chance of people who already had COVID getting reinfected than there was with the original virus and previous variants. But some public health experts say they believe that countries that have already been through brutal waves of COVID, such as Brazil and India, may have a buffer against omicron, and vaccination after infection produces high antibody levels.

“The combination of vaccination and exposure to the virus seems to be stronger than only having the vaccine,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, a public health researcher in New Delhi. India, he noted, has an adult vaccination rate of only about 40% but 90% exposure to the virus in some areas.

“Without a doubt omicron is going to flood through India,” he said. “But hopefully India is protected to some extent because of vaccination and exposure.”

China does not have this layer of protection to back up its weak vaccines. Because of China’s aggressive efforts to stop spread of the virus within its borders, relatively few people have previous exposure. Only an estimated 7% of people in Wuhan, where the pandemic began, were infected.

Much of Latin America has relied on the Chinese and Russian vaccines, and on AstraZeneca. Mario Rosemblatt, a professor of immunology at the University of Chile, said that more than 90% of Chileans had had two doses of one vaccine, but the great majority of these were Coronavac, the Sinovac shot. High vaccination coverage combined with early reports that omicron does not cause serious illness is leading to a false sense of security in the country, he said.

“We have to get people to understand that it doesn’t work like that: If you get high transmissibility you’re going to have the health system saturated because the number of people getting ill will be higher,” he said.

Brazil has recommended that all vaccinated people get a third dose, and it started using Pfizer’s vaccine for all boosters, but only 40% of the vaccinated have turned up to get the extra shot. Dr. Amilcar Tanuri, a virus expert at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said with cautious optimism that the high levels of previous COVID exposure might blunt omicron’s impact but noted that the most vulnerable Brazilians, vaccinated first, got Coronavac, and tens of millions more were given AstraZeneca.

Morrison called omicron’s ability to evade the protection of vaccination “a massive setback” for low- and middle-income countries, where, far from any discussion of boosters, the focus is still on delivering first shots.

“The world gets cleaved into two parts, right?” he said. “It’s those that have a quick path toward boosters versus those who have had very limited progress and suddenly they’re subject to this new lashing.”

Just 13% of people in Africa have received a least one dose of a COVID vaccine.

Laxminarayan said the Indian government, to which he is an occasional adviser, was considering booster shots, but the delta variant still poses a significant threat in India, and two vaccine doses offers protection against delta. That presents the government with a difficult choice between focusing on getting people who remain unvaccinated, or only partly vaccinated, to two doses, or trying to gets boosters to older people and those with high-risk medical conditions as protection against omicron.

The news that the non-mRNA vaccines offer little protection against infection from omicron may further erode demand for shots in countries already struggling to build demand, Morrison said.

“This challenges the whole value of vaccines,” he said. “If you’re so far behind and then you suffer this, it’s going to feed anti-vaccine sentiment and weaken confidence.”

Tolbert Nyenswah, a senior researcher with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the emerging threat to countries in the global south that have relied on non-mRNA vaccines was an indictment of wealthy countries’ failure to share that technology or help build production points in low- and middle-income countries.

As a consequence, dangerous variants will continue to emerge from areas with low vaccination coverage and will prolong the pandemic, predicted Nyenswah, who was deputy minister of health in Liberia through that country’s worst Ebola outbreak.

Berkley at Gavi said it would be a serious mistake for countries to ease up on their vaccination push or to assume that only mRNA vaccines are worth distributing.

“We may be seeing a situation where countries say, ‘If developed countries don’t want these vaccines, then we don’t want these vaccines,’” he said. “That, of course, would be the wrong interpretation, if it turns out that these vaccines prevent against severe disease and death.”

A growing body of preliminary research suggests the COVID vaccines used in most of the world offer almost no defense against becoming infected by the highly contagious omicron variant.

A growing body of preliminary research suggests the COVID vaccines used in most of the world offer almost no defense against becoming infected by the highly contagious omicron variant. All vaccines still seem to provide a significant degree of protection against serious illness from omicron, which is the most crucial goal. But only the Pfizer and Moderna shots, when reinforced by a booster, appear to have initial success at stopping infections, and these vaccines are unavailable in most of the world. The other shots — including those from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and vaccines manufactured in China and Russia — do little to nothing to stop the spread of omicron, early research shows. And because most countries have built their inoculation programs around these vaccines, the gap could have a profound impact on the course of the pandemic. A global surge of infections in a world where billions of people remain unvaccinated not only threatens the health of vulnerable individuals but also increases the opportunity for the emergence of yet more variants. The disparity in the ability of countries to weather the pandemic will almost certainly deepen. And the news about limited vaccine efficacy against omicron infection could depress demand for vaccination throughout the developing world, where many people are already hesitant or preoccupied with other health problems. Most evidence so far is based on laboratory experiments, which do not capture the full range of the body’s immune response, and not from tracking the effect on real-world populations. The results are striking, however. The Pfizer and Moderna shots use the new mRNA technology, which has consistently offered the best protection against infection with every variant. All of the other vaccines are based on older methods of triggering an immune response. The Chinese vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac — which make up almost half of all shots delivered globally — offer almost zero protection from omicron infection. The great majority of people in China have received these shots, which are also widely used in low- and middle-income countries such as Mexico and Brazil. A preliminary effectiveness study in Britain found that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine showed no ability to stop omicron infection six months after vaccination. Ninety percent of vaccinated people in India received this shot, under the brand name Covishield; it has also been widely used across much of sub-Saharan Africa, where COVAX, the global COVID vaccine program, has distributed 67 million doses of it to 44 countries. Researchers predict that Russia’s Sputnik vaccine, which is also being used in Africa and Latin America, will show similarly dismal rates of protection against omicron. Demand for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been surging in Africa, because its single-shot delivery regimen makes it easy to deliver in low-resource settings. But it too has shown a negligible ability to block omicron infection. Antibodies are the first line of defense induced by vaccines. But the shots also stimulate the growth of T cells, and preliminary studies suggest that these T cells still recognize the omicron variant, which is important in preventing severe disease. “What you lose first is protection against asymptomatic mild infection, what you retain much better is protection against severe disease and death,” said John Moore, a virus expert at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. He called it “a silver lining” that omicron so far appears less lethal than the delta variant. But this protection will not be enough to prevent omicron from causing global disruption, said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for International and Strategic Studies. “The sheer scale of infection will overwhelm health systems, simply because the denominator will be potentially so big,” he said. “If you have a burst of infection worldwide, a shock, what does the world look like on other side of it? Is it, ‘The war is over,’ or, ‘The war has just entered another phase’? We haven’t begun thinking about any of that.” People with breakthrough cases may experience only asymptomatic infection or mild illness, but they can pass the virus to unvaccinated people, who could fall more severely ill, and become a source of new variants. Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, said that more data was needed before drawing conclusions about vaccines’ effectiveness against omicron — and that accelerated vaccination should continue to be the focus of pandemic response. Preliminary data from South Africa suggest that with omicron, there is a much higher chance of people who already had COVID getting reinfected than there was with the original virus and previous variants. But some public health experts say they believe that countries that have already been through brutal waves of COVID, such as Brazil and India, may have a buffer against omicron, and vaccination after infection produces high antibody levels. “The combination of vaccination and exposure to the virus seems to be stronger than only having the vaccine,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, a public health researcher in New Delhi. India, he noted, has an adult vaccination rate of only about 40% but 90% exposure to the virus in some areas. “Without a doubt omicron is going to flood through India,” he said. “But hopefully India is protected to some extent because of vaccination and exposure.” China does not have this layer of protection to back up its weak vaccines. Because of China’s aggressive efforts to stop spread of the virus within its borders, relatively few people have previous exposure. Only an estimated 7% of people in Wuhan, where the pandemic began, were infected. Much of Latin America has relied on the Chinese and Russian vaccines, and on AstraZeneca. Mario Rosemblatt, a professor of immunology at the University of Chile, said that more than 90% of Chileans had had two doses of one vaccine, but the great majority of these were Coronavac, the Sinovac shot. High vaccination coverage combined with early reports that omicron does not cause serious illness is leading to a false sense of security in the country, he said. “We have to get people to understand that it doesn’t work like that: If you get high transmissibility you’re going to have the health system saturated because the number of people getting ill will be higher,” he said. Brazil has recommended that all vaccinated people get a third dose, and it started using Pfizer’s vaccine for all boosters, but only 40% of the vaccinated have turned up to get the extra shot. Dr. Amilcar Tanuri, a virus expert at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said with cautious optimism that the high levels of previous COVID exposure might blunt omicron’s impact but noted that the most vulnerable Brazilians, vaccinated first, got Coronavac, and tens of millions more were given AstraZeneca. Morrison called omicron’s ability to evade the protection of vaccination “a massive setback” for low- and middle-income countries, where, far from any discussion of boosters, the focus is still on delivering first shots. “The world gets cleaved into two parts, right?” he said. “It’s those that have a quick path toward boosters versus those who have had very limited progress and suddenly they’re subject to this new lashing.” Just 13% of people in Africa have received a least one dose of a COVID vaccine. Laxminarayan said the Indian government, to which he is an occasional adviser, was considering booster shots, but the delta variant still poses a significant threat in India, and two vaccine doses offers protection against delta. That presents the government with a difficult choice between focusing on getting people who remain unvaccinated, or only partly vaccinated, to two doses, or trying to gets boosters to older people and those with high-risk medical conditions as protection against omicron. The news that the non-mRNA vaccines offer little protection against infection from omicron may further erode demand for shots in countries already struggling to build demand, Morrison said. “This challenges the whole value of vaccines,” he said. “If you’re so far behind and then you suffer this, it’s going to feed anti-vaccine sentiment and weaken confidence.” Tolbert Nyenswah, a senior researcher with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the emerging threat to countries in the global south that have relied on non-mRNA vaccines was an indictment of wealthy countries’ failure to share that technology or help build production points in low- and middle-income countries. As a consequence, dangerous variants will continue to emerge from areas with low vaccination coverage and will prolong the pandemic, predicted Nyenswah, who was deputy minister of health in Liberia through that country’s worst Ebola outbreak. Berkley at Gavi said it would be a serious mistake for countries to ease up on their vaccination push or to assume that only mRNA vaccines are worth distributing. “We may be seeing a situation where countries say, ‘If developed countries don’t want these vaccines, then we don’t want these vaccines,’” he said. “That, of course, would be the wrong interpretation, if it turns out that these vaccines prevent against severe disease and death.”

Most of the world's vaccines likely won't prevent infection from Omicron

South Africa reported its highest daily tally of new coronavirus cases ever, a few days after President Cyril Ramaphosa tested positive for the infection. South Africa was the first country to detect the new omicron strain.

Omicron variant | South Africa reports 26,976 covid-19 cases reported in 24 hours

The arrival of the Omicron variant in Britain has sent covid infection cases spiraling. Britain has recorded the highest daily cases since the pandemic hit the country last year. Over 78,000 new cases have been confirmed in the UK in just one day.

Omicron variant: UK confirms over 78,000 covid cases in last 24 hours

Parts of Europe are once again going into a lockdown mode because of the surge in cases due to the spread of the Omicron variant. This is the second year in a row that the country is shutting down.

Parts of Europe go into lockdown as Omicron cases surge

Pfizer Inc has said that its antiviral COVID-19 has about 90% efficacy in preventing hospitalizations and deaths in high-risk patients, and recent lab data suggests the drug retains its effectiveness against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

Pfizer covid-19 pill nearly 90% effective against Omicron variant of Coronavirus

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