Covid live news: WHO says 2022 will be the year “we end the pandemic” as US says Omicron is now the dominant strain | World news

Health officials a Texas they say the state has recorded the first death related to the Omicron Covid variant.

Omicron is believed to be the first death in the United States, according to a statement from Harris County health officials.

The victim was reportedly a 50-year-old man who was not vaccinated and had underlying health problems.

The statement said:

The reported death this afternoon was of a 50- to 60-year-old man who had not been vaccinated and had previously been infected with Covid-19. The individual was at higher risk for serious complications from Covid-19 due to his unvaccinated condition and had underlying health conditions. “

County Judge Lina Hidalgo made the announcement during an afternoon press conference.

“My phone was ringing, you must have noticed, and it was our director of public health who told me we had just had our first Omicron-related death,” he said.

Omicron is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S., federal health officials said Monday, advancing Delta and other variants and accounting for 73 percent of new infections last week.

Numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed a nearly six-fold increase in the share of Omicron infections in just one week.

In much of the country, the prevalence of Omicron is even higher. It is responsible for approximately 90% of new infections in the New York area, the Southeast, the Industrial Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest.

Since the end of June, the Delta variant has been the main version causing infections in the US. At the end of November, more than 99.5% of coronaviruses were Delta, according to CDC data.

Read the full story here.

He World Health Organization sounded a new warning about the Omicron variant, arguing that some events during the holiday season should be postponed.

“We are all sick of this pandemic,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The quickest way to do that, he said, could potentially be to cancel or delay holiday events.

“A canceled event is better than a canceled life,” he said. The WHO says there is now consistent evidence that the Omicron strain is spreading faster than the Delta variant.

Watch the video of Monday’s briefing below.

The world must unite and make the difficult decisions needed to end the Covid-19 pandemic next year, the director general of the World Health Organization told reporters in Geneva.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus offered some hope for an end to the pandemic, which has already killed more than 5.6 million people worldwide, saying:

2022 must be the year we end the pandemic. “

The WHO noted the development of second- and third-generation vaccines and the subsequent development of antimicrobial treatments and other innovations.

WHO’s top emergency expert told the briefing:

(We hope to consign this disease to a relatively mild disease that is easily prevented, that is easily treated.

If we can keep the transmission of the virus to a minimum, we can end the pandemic. “

As the end-of-year festivities approach, the head of the UN health agency said countries should curb national holiday-related events because allowing crowds to gather would be a chore. “perfect platform” for Omicron to spread.

The WHO warned that holiday parties in many places would lead to “an increase in cases, overflowing health systems and more deaths” and urged people to postpone meetings.

“A canceled event is better than a canceled life,” Ghebreyesus said.

It would be better to cancel events now and celebrate later “than to celebrate now and cry later,” he added.

Since it was first reported in South Africa in November, Omicron has been identified in dozens of countries.

Hi, we are Samantha Lock back with you for today’s Covid blog as we count down to the holidays.

First, some positive news to share with you.

He World Health Organization (WHO) has offered some hope for an end to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has so far killed more than 5.6 million people worldwide.

“2022 must be the year we end the pandemic,” the WHO director-general said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus he told reporters Monday.

“We look forward to assigning this disease to a relatively mild, easily preventable, easily treatable disease,” added Mike Ryan, WHO’s chief emergency expert. “If we can keep the transmission of the virus to a minimum, we can end the pandemic.”

More in the US Omicron it has been found to be the dominant version of coronavirus, federal health officials have said, advancing to Delta and other variants and accounting for 73% of new infections last week.

He Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed a nearly six-fold increase in the share of Omicron infections in just one week.

Omicron is responsible for approximately 90% of new infections in the New York area, the Southeast, the Industrial Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest.

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s happened so far:

• He UK The government was interrupted by announcing new restrictions on Covid, but its prime minister, Boris Johnson, warned that more measures are on the table, with data on the Omicron threat monitored “hour by hour”. Johnson was accused of failing to follow the advice of scientists on the need for immediate restrictions while leaving millions of people and businesses in limbo after a two-hour cabinet meeting ended Monday without a decision.
• Schools, bars, gyms and cinemas in Quebec will close as of Monday as public health officials rush to slow the spread of the Omicron variant. All non-essential workers are asked to work from home and restaurants will have to reduce their capacity to 50% and limit their hours from 5 to 22 hours.
• LondonThe celebration of New Year’s Eve in Trafalgar Square will not take place due to the increase in cases of the Omicron Covid variant in the capital, said the mayor of the city, Sadiq Khan.
• He of the European Union The drug regulator has given the green light to a fifth vaccine against Covid for use, granting conditional marketing authorization to the two-dose treatment performed by the US biotechnology company Novavax.
• Donald Trump was received with a push from a live audience after revealing that he has received a booster vaccine against the Covid-19 vaccine. The former president of the United States rejected the negative response of the crowd and claimed that his administration was responsible for developing coronavirus vaccines.
• Modern said a booster dose of his Covid vaccine appeared to be protective against the rapidly spreading Omicron variant in laboratory tests and that the current version of the vaccine would continue to be the “first line of defense against Omicron”. Modern.
• Great Britain reported 91,743 new cases of Covid on Monday, the second highest figure since the start of the pandemic, as the Omicron variant continues to spread rapidly. The death toll in the 28 days following a positive Covid test was 44.
• Queen Elizabeth will celebrate Christmas in Windsor instead of his usual Sandringham election because of Covid’s security fears, according to a palace source. The monarch usually spends the holidays on his farm in Norfolk and sources have said the decision was “personal after careful consideration and reflects a precautionary approach”.
• He rus creator of Covid Sputnik V The vaccine is due to be released in late December, and inspections at the manufacturing site are expected to continue in February, a World Health Organization official said.
• Panama has detected its first case of the Omicron variant of Covid, said the Central American health ministry.