JOHANNESBURG: The World Health Organization (WHO) has deployed a team of officials to South Africa's Gauteng province, the epicentre of the new Omicron coronavirus variant, for ramping up surveillance measures and contact tracing efforts as the country grapples with rising infections, an official said on Thursday.
Some 11,500 new infections were registered in the latest daily figures, a sharp rise from the 8,500 cases confirmed the previous day.
In contrast, daily infections were averaging between 200 and 300 in mid-November in the country, health officials said.
Omicron, which was first identified in South Africa exactly a week ago, now has been detected in at least 24 countries around the world, according to the WHO.
"We are deploying a surge team in Gauteng province to support surveillance and contact tracing," Dr Salam Gueye, WHO Regional Emergency Director for Africa, said in a media briefing on Thursday, adding that a team is already working in South Africa on genomic sequencing.
The Gauteng province, which is the economic hub of South Africa, has accounted for almost 80 per cent of the infections over the past week.
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said at the same briefing that around 75 per cent of samples were testing positive for the new variant.
"For the month of November, we had 249 sequences and of those, 183 have been considered to be Omicron," said NICD clinical microbiologist professor Anne von Gottberg.
According to the Africa Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, the continent recorded 52,300 new COVID-19 cases compared to the previous week --- a 105 per cent increase.
WHO's Africa director Dr. Matshidiso Moeti said on Thursday that countries "must adjust their COVID-19 response and stop a surge in cases from sweeping across Africa and possibly overwhelming already-stretched health facilities."
Gauteng premier David Makhura confirmed in a separate media briefing that the province was on the cusp of a fourth wave.
"We are monitoring the situation very closely; getting feedback from our clinical teams also on the full impact of this. As we see the (rising) numbers every day, we are very concerned about it," Makhura said, as he made a plea to residents of the province to step up to get vaccinated.
The premier said that since Monday, there were over 50,000 vaccinations a day from the low of 30,000 daily before the announcement of the new variant.
"If we sustain the daily vaccination of 50,000 throughout this period into the festive season, it will help us to reach at least another half a million people before they leave Gauteng," he said.
Makhura was referring to the annual exodus to rural areas outside the province by workers in Gauteng as business and industry shuts down from mid-December for several weeks until early in the new year.
"We need to catch people here in Gauteng and vaccinate them because we know that during the festive season millions of people leave our province. We don't want people to be carrying this variant to other provinces, especially those who are not vaccinated," he explained.
Joining Makhura at the briefing was Gauteng COVID-19 Command Council chairperson Dr Mary Kawonga, who said the province was already seeing a spike in cases.
"The rate at which cases are increasing and the fact that we actually two days ago passed the seven-day rolling average that was the threshold for the third wave means that we are in a resurgence, and we need to behave like we are already in the (fourth) wave, without waiting for the technical definition," she said.
Kawonga said the peak of the fourth wave was expected in about two weeks, with about 45,000 active cases and about 4,000 hospitalisations at the peak.
"Remember, this is the modelling and the prediction. Depending on how we are able to vaccinate and how we adhere to non-pharmaceutical interventions, it is very possible that whatever is predicted might not come to pass," she opined.
Another member of the Council, Professor Bruce Melado, believed that although a higher peak would likely occur during the fourth wave, there would be fewer deaths.
"We should expect at least 4,000 (deaths) compared to the 9,500 during the third peak," said Melado, adding that the high levels of community transmissions were expected to continue into January.
A minister in the South Africa government has told the country's parliament that the rights of individuals who do not want to get vaccinated for COVID-19 are overtaken by the rights of a collective that opts to be vaccinated.
"A collective right becomes superior to an individual right. We will therefore not deny you to stay at home, if you so wish. But it would actually be foolhardy to say you can't force yourself into a taxi of 10 other people who are vaccinated, if you refuse to vaccinate but want to travel with them to work," South Africa's Deputy Health Minister Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo said on Wednesday.
He was reacting to some members of Parliament, who were adamant that the right of citizens to choose not to be vaccinated was being trampled upon by the government's decision to appoint a task team to investigate mandatory vaccinations for access to workplaces and public events.
President Cyril Ramaphosa made this announcement as part of a national address on Sunday when he said that Deputy President David Mabuza would lead the team.
Dhlomo said individuals could choose not to get vaccinated but they can not be allowed to expose the majority of vaccinated people to the risk of COVID-19 infection.
"You probably may find a space alone for yourself somewhere, because while you insist on your individual right not to vaccinate, you must also be ready to protect the collective rights of many other people than yourself," he said.
Dhlomo also reacted to parliamentarians who queried why Ramaphosa had not raised the lockdown from its current lowest Level One of a five-level strategy to deal with the pandemic after South Africa announced the discovery of the Omicron variant.
Dhlomo said previously there was nothing to mitigate a full lockdown.
"The President has said that we now have the solace of a vaccine and if we do use it, we will go forward. Scientists are saying that even if you are vaccinated, you could still get COVID-19, but it would not be so severe that it will take you to hospital or ICU or death," Dhlomo said.
South Africa moves into a fourth wave with the economic hub of Gauteng province accounting for 80 per cent of the 11,500 infections reported for the 24-hour period ended on Thursday.
Some individuals and political parties are leading anti-vaccine campaigns that have dampened the government's target of reaching herd immunity by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Spanish health authorities have confirmed the first case of the omicron coronavirus strain without any established link to southern Africa.
Secretary of State for Health Silvia Calzón said that of the five confirmed cases of the omicron variant in Spain there was one case identified on Thursday in a person who had not travelled to South Africa nor had any links to people who had made such a trip.
Spain's ban on flights connecting air routes from South Africa and six neighbouring countries started on Thursday for fears of the new strain identified by South African authorities.
Much remains unknown about the new variant, though the World Health Organization warned that the global risk from the variant is "very high" and early evidence suggests it could be more contagious.
Just a day after the US announced its first case of the omicron variant of the coronavirus had been detected in California, health officials announced Thursday it was found in a man who attended an anime convention in New York City in late November.
The man tested positive after returning home to Minnesota, health officials in that state said.
Officials in New York said they were working to trace attendees at the convention, held Nov.19-21 at the city's Jacob K.Javits Convention Centre.
Vaccinations were required for the event.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said there are no confirmed omicron cases among New York residents.
"There is one way to address this, New Yorkers, get vaccinated, get boosted, and get ready," the Democratic governor said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement that "we should assume" there is community spread of omicron in the city.
The Minnesota man attended Anime NYC 2021 at the Javits Center, the Minnesota Department of Health said.
The man, who had been vaccinated, showed mild symptoms Nov.22 and sought COVID-19 testing Nov.24.
His symptoms have subsided.
Much remains unknown about the new variant, including whether it is more contagious, as some health authorities suspect, whether it makes people more seriously ill, and whether it can thwart the vaccine.
The US recorded its first confirmed case of the omicron variant Wednesday.
A vaccinated traveller who returned to California after a trip to South Africa on Nov.22 developed mild symptoms and tested positive for COVID-19 Monday.
Omicron is classified by the World Health Organization as a "variant of concern" as scientists work to determine how it may compare with the predominant delta variant in terms of transmissibility and severity.
Scientists also are studying the degree to which existing vaccines and therapies protect against omicron.
Israel said Thursday it was halting the use of a controversial phone tracking technology to trace possible cases of the new coronavirus variant.
Earlier this week, the government approved travel restrictions and authorised the country's internal security agency to use the phone monitoring technology for contact tracing people infected by the omicron variant in Israel.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's office said in a statement that emergency measures authorising "cellular monitoring" of people who are infected by omicron, and those who might have been in contact with those cases, would expire at midnight.
The decision to reverse course on the Shin Bet's tracking came after the Cabinet approved the practice under an emergency measure on Tuesday.
A government ombudsman had spoken out against implementing the technology, arguing that it was ineffective.
Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said on Twitter that "from the beginning I noted that use of this tool would be limited and brief, for a few days, in order to get urgent information to halt infection with the new, unknown variant."
He said that "alongside protecting health, we must protect privacy and human rights, even in a time of emergency."
Israeli rights groups had decried the use of the technology, which can track where a person has been and whom he has met, as a violation of privacy rights.
The Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that its use be limited.
Greeks who are over age 60 and refuse coronavirus vaccinations could be hit with monthly fines of more than one-quarter of their minimum pensions a get-tough policy that the country's politicians say will cost votes but save lives.
In Israel, potential carriers of the new omicron variant could be tracked by the nation's domestic security agency in seeming defiance of a Supreme Court ruling from the last go-round.
Weekly protests in the Netherlands over the country's 5 pm lockdown and other new restrictions have descended into violence, despite what appears to be overwhelming acceptance of the rules.
With the delta variant of COVID-19 pushing up cases in Europe and growing fears over the omicron variant, governments around the world are weighing new measures for populations tired of hearing about restrictions and vaccines.
It's a thorny calculus made more difficult by the prospect of backlash, increased social divisions and, for many politicians, the fear of being voted out of office.
"I know the frustration that we all feel with this omicron variant, the sense of exhaustion that we could be going through this all over again," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday, two days after the government announced that masks would be mandatory again in stores and on public transportation and required all visitors from abroad to undergo a COVID-19 test and quarantine.
"We're trying to take a balanced and proportioned approach."
New restrictions, or variations on the old ones, are cropping up around the world, especially in Europe, where leaders are at pains to explain what looks like a failed promise: that mass vaccination would mean an end to widely loathed limitations.
"People need normality. They need families, they need to see people, obviously safely, socially distancing, but I really think, this Christmas now, people have had enough," said Belinda Storey, who runs a stall at a Christmas market in Nottingham, England.
In the Netherlands, where the curfew went into effect last week, mounted police patrol to break up demonstrations against the new lockdown, which is among the world's strictest.
But most people appeared resigned to rush through errands and head home.
"The only thing we can do is to listen to the rules, follow them and hope it's not getting worse. For me it's no problem. I'm a nurse. I know how sick people get," said Wilma van Kampen.
Huburt Bruls, mayor of the Dutch city of Nijmegen who banned a protest last weekend, said he sympathised with the frustration but was prepared to carry out the national rules at home.
"There was a lot of disappointment in the effects of vaccination. Everybody did their best, we had one of the highest rates of vaccinations and it wasn't enough. Infections are higher than ever. I myself was a little disappointed, but we have to look ahead," he said.
In Greece, residents over 60 face fines of 100 euros ($113) a month if they fail to get vaccinated.
The fines will be tacked onto tax bills in January.
About 17% of Greeks over 60 are unvaccinated despite various efforts to prod them to get their shots, and nine in 10 Greeks currently dying of COVID-19 are over 60.
"I don't care whether the measure will cost me some extra votes in the elections," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Wednesday after lawmakers passed the measure.
"I am convinced that we are doing the right thing, and I am convinced that this policy will save lives."
Employing a carrot instead of a stick, Slovakia's government is proposing to give people 60 and older a 500-euro ($568) bonus if they get vaccinated.
In Israel, the government this week approved resuming the use of a controversial phone-monitoring technology to perform contact tracing of people confirmed to have the omicron variant.
Israeli rights groups have decried the use of the technology as a violation of privacy rights, and others have noted that its accuracy in indoor places is flawed, leading to large numbers of people being wrongly flagged.
The Supreme Court earlier this year issued a ruling limiting its use.
"We need to use this tool in extreme situations, and I am not convinced we are in that kind of situation," Justice Minister Gideon Saar told Israeli public broadcaster Kan this week.
In South Africa, which alerted the World Health Organization to the omicron variant, previous restrictions included curfews and a ban on alcohol sales.
This time, President Cyril Ramaphosa is simply calling on more people to get vaccines "to help restore the social freedoms we all yearn for."
Germany on Thursday imposed strict new limitations on the unvaccinated, excluding them from nonessential stores, restaurants, and other major public venues.
They can go to work only with a negative test.
The legislature is expected to take up a general vaccine mandate in the coming weeks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the measures were necessary because hospitals risks becoming overloaded: "The situation in our country is serious."
Infections have again topped 70,000 in a 24-hour period.
Officials have also agreed to require masks in German schools, impose new limits on private meetings In the US, there is little appetite in either political party for a return to lockdowns or strict contact tracing.
Enforcing even simple measures like mask-wearing has become a political flashpoint.
And Republicans are suing to block the Biden administration's new get-vaccinated-or-get-tested requirement for large employers.
President Joe Biden, whose political fate may well hinge on controlling the pandemic, has used a combination of pressure and urgent appeals to induce people to get their first shots or a booster.
Also, the administration is working toward requiring that all air travellers to the US be tested within a day before boarding their flight, instead of the current three days.
But Biden has said the US will fight COVID-19 and the new variant "not with shutdowns or lockdowns but with more widespread vaccinations, boosters, testing, and more."
"If people are vaccinated and wear their masks, there's no need for the lockdowns," he added.
The rise of the new variant makes little difference to Mark Christensen, a grain buyer for an ethanol plant in Nebraska.
He rejects any vaccination mandate and doesn't understand why it would be needed.
In any event, he said, most businesses in his corner of the state are too small to fall under the regulations.
"If they were just encouraging me to take it, that's one thing," Christensen said.
"But I believe in freedom of choice, not decisions by force."
Chile has taken a harder line since the emergence of omicron: People over 18 must receive a booster dose every six months to keep their pass that allows access to restaurants, hotels and public gatherings.
And Chile never dropped its requirement to wear masks in public, probably the most common renewed restriction around the world.
Dr. Madhukar Pai, of McGill University's School of Population and Public Health, said that masks are an easy and pain-free way of keeping transmission down, but that cheap, at-home tests need to be much more widespread, in both rich and poor countries.
He said both approaches give people a sense of control over their own behaviour that is lost with a lockdown and make it easier to accept the need to do things like cancel a party or stay inside.
Pai said requiring boosters universally, as is essentially the case in Israel, Chile and many countries in Europe, including France, will only prolong the pandemic by making it harder to get first doses to the developing world.
That raises the odds of still more variants.
Lockdowns, he said, should be the very last choice.
"Lockdowns only come up when a system is failing," he said.
"We do it when the hospital system is about to collapse. It's a last resort that indicates you have failed to do all the right things."
That's not how lockdowns are seen in communist China, which allows little dissent.
At each new outbreak, entire cities are sealed, and sometimes millions of people undergo mass testing.
In the strictest lockdowns, people are forbidden to leave their homes, and groceries are brought to their door.
So far, China hasn't seen the need for new restrictions in response to the omicron variant.
The head of China's Center for Disease Control's Epidemiology unit, Wu Zunyou, said omicron, for now, poses a manageable threat, and "no matter what variant, our public health measures are effective."
The Belgian government has vowed to reinforce measures to contain the coronavirus even more with fresh measures to be decided Friday, possibly including more school closures and further reducing opening times of bars and restaurants.
Local media said Friday's possible measures also include further cuts in indoor sports events, and reducing group meetings to 200 people at most.
"We have to reinforce the dikes, keep reinforcing them," Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke told Parliament.
"At a certain point you really have to make them strong enough and that is the challenge for Friday."
It will be the third time Belgium has beefed up measures in less than a month to contain the latest spike in cases.
Over the past few weeks, the number of cases and hospital admissions has exceeded at times even the worst medical predictions.
Last Friday, the government reinforced measures for the second time in little more than a week and closed nightclubs, while bars and restaurants have to shut at 11 pm for the next three weeks.
Under proposals from experts, that could be pushed back to 8 pm.
The latest figures in the nation of 11 million show that on a weekly average, there are 17,917 new cases a day.
Hospital admission are up 9% a day, and ICU patients now total 792 for a rise of 20% on a weekly basis.
In all, 75% of the Belgian population is fully vaccinated, one of the highest percentages in the 27-nation EU.
"We thought that it would fully buttress our wall of defense," said Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.
"We have to recognize that we were wrong," he said, as he acknowledged more measures would be needed.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that people who aren't vaccinated will be excluded from nonessential stores, cultural and recreational venues, and parliament will consider a general vaccine mandate, as part of an effort to curb coronavirus infections that again topped 70,000 newly confirmed cases in a 24-hour period.
Speaking after a meeting with federal and state leaders, Merkel the measures were necessary in light of concerns that hospitals in Germany could become overloaded with people suffering COVID-19 infections, which are more likely to be serious in those who haven't been vaccinated.
"The situation is our country is serious," Merkel told reporters in Berlin, calling the measure an "act of national solidarity."
She said officials also agreed to require masks in schools, impose new limits on private meetings and aim for 30 million vaccinations by the end of the year.
Merkel also said that parliament will debate the possibility of imposing a general vaccine mandate that would come into force as early as February.
About 68.7% of the population in Germany is fully vaccinated, far below the minimum of 75% the government is aiming for.
Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, who is expected to be elected chancellor by a centre-left coalition next week, said Tuesday that he backs a general vaccine mandate, but favours letting lawmakers vote according to their personal conscience rather than party lines on the matter.
The rise in COVID-19 cases over the past several weeks and the arrival of the new omicron variant have prompted warnings from scientists and doctors that medical services in the country could become overstretched in the coming weeks unless drastic action is taken.
Some hospitals in the south and east of the country have already transferred patients to other parts of Germany because of a shortage of intensive care beds.
Agreeing what measures to take has been complicated by Germany's political structure with the 16 states responsible for many of the regulations and the ongoing transition at the federal level.
Germany's disease control agency reported 73,209 newly confirmed cases Thursday.
The Robert Koch Institute also reported 388 new deaths from COVID-19, taking the total since the start of the pandemic to 102,178.
Japan says it has retracted a ban on new bookings on incoming international flights to defend against the new variant of the coronavirus only a day after the policy was announced.
The transport ministry on Wednesday issued a request to international airlines to stop taking new reservations for flights coming into Japan until the end of December as an emergency precaution to defend against the new omicron variant.
The ministry said Thursday it has retracted the request after receiving heavy criticisms from inside and outside the country that the ban was too strict.
Japan has reported two cases of the omicron variant, which was first reported in South Africa last week.