(Reuters) – Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:
S.Korea considers expanded home care as new cases top 7,000
South Korea will consider expanding home treatment for COVID-19 patients, a health ministry official said on Wednesday, as both new daily infections and severe cases hit records, straining hospital capacity.
Infections have surged this month after the government began to ease curbs in its “living with COVID-19” scheme last month.
The official, Son Young-rae, said the healthcare system may need significant adjustments if daily cases top 10,000, and the government may consider boosting the level of at-home treatment from about half now, as four-fifths of patients show only mild symptoms or none.
Fewer than 3% of COVID-19 patients were hospitalised in Britain, 6.95% in Singapore and 12.8% in Japan, he said.
Study suggests Pfizer vaccine may only partially protect against Omicron
The Omicron variant of coronavirus can partially evade protection from two doses of vaccine made by Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech, Alex Sigal, the research head of a South African laboratory, said on Tuesday.
However, the study, based on preliminary data that has not yet been peer-reviewed, showed recipients of two vaccine doses who had a prior infection were mostly able to neutralise the variant, suggesting booster doses could help fend off infection.
On Twitter, Sigal said there was “a very large drop” in neutralisation of Omicron, compared to an earlier variant.
The lab tested blood from 12 people given two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, a manuscript posted on its website showed.
Britain marks a year since its first Pfizer vaccine dose
Wednesday marked a year since a Briton became the world’s first person to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine outside of clinical trials, with authorities urging people to get booster shots as soon as they become eligible.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called for another vaccination effort on a similar scale for the booster programme as concern grows over the Omicron variant, which has also seen him reintroduce some mask mandates and travel restrictions.
Britain has now given nearly 120 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
Up to a million COVID-19 doses wasted in Nigeria last month
Up to one million doses of COVID-19 vaccines are estimated to have expired unused in Nigeria last month, two sources told Reuters, one of the biggest such incidents, highlighting the difficulty African nations experience in giving shots.
The expired doses were made by AstraZeneca and delivered from Europe, said the sources, who have direct knowledge of vaccine delivery and use.
They were supplied via COVAX, the dose-sharing facility led by the GAVI vaccine alliance and the World Health Organization which is increasingly reliant on donations.
Many African countries are finding they lack the capacity to manage the shots, some of which have a short shelf life. A third source with knowledge of the delivery said some doses arrived just four to six weeks before expiry and could not be used in time, despite authorities’ efforts.
U.S. boosters surge to all-time high on Omicron fears
Americans are lining up at a record pace for booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines, as concerns about the Omicron variant spur millions to get shots, the government said on Tuesday.
Just under a million people a day received booster doses of one of the three authorised vaccines last week, the highest rate since U.S. regulators approved additional shots for some adults in Sept, government figures show.
About 47 million people have now received a booster, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows, or almost a quarter of all fully vaccinated adults. News of the variant, the desire to be reunited with family over the winter holiday season and public health messaging have fuelled the demand, said Dr William Schaffner, an expert in infectious diseases.
(Compiled by Karishma Singh; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
