Omicron World War thwarted by fragmented response

ROME In a well-known cycle of tracing first cases, pointing fingers and stopping travel, nations around the world reacted Monday to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in part that has determined and inhibited the pandemic response all along.

As fear and resignation invaded the world again, the World Health Organization warned that the risk posed by the large mutation variant was very high. But once again operating in a test vacuum, governments chose approaches that differed between continents, between neighboring countries, and even between cities within those countries.

Little is known about Omicron beyond the large number of mutations; It will take, at least, weeks before scientists can say for sure if it is more contagious, early evidence suggests whether it causes more serious illness and how it reacts to vaccines.

In China, which had become increasingly alone in shutting itself down as it sought to eradicate the virus, a Communist Party-controlled newspaper praised the democracies that are now following suit as Japan, Australia and other countries stopped flirting with a return to normalcy. and closed their borders before the world. The West, he said, had amassed vaccines at the expense of the poorer regions and was now paying a price for its selfishness.

In the United States, federal officials on Monday called on vaccinated people to get booster vaccines. President Biden tried to reassure Americans, saying the new variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic, and that his administration was already working with vaccine manufacturers to modify vaccines if this were to be the case. necessary.

We were throwing away everything we have in this virus, tracking it down from every angle, the president said in a White House appearance.

In South Africa, where scientists first identified Omicron among a largely unvaccinated population, leaders lamented travel bans as destructive and counterproductive to virus tracking, saying they could discourage transparency about outbreaks. African officials also noted that due to inequality in vaccine distribution, the continent faces the latter variant with little or no protection.

But as vaccine deliveries to Africa become more reliable, some countries demanded a vaccine mandate to curb the spread of the coronavirus. On Sunday, the Ghanaian government announced that government employees, health care workers and staff and students in most schools must be vaccinated by 22 January.

Europe, which has acted in an unusual concert in banning travel from South Africa, is stepping up reinforcements in the hope of working against Omicron and regulating or reconsidering a measure of social distancing, even in countries resistant to restrictions. and Britain. .

The lack of a consistent and coherent global approach has resulted in a divided and fragmented response, increasing misunderstanding, misinformation and mistrust, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the World Health Organization.

The WHO convened a special three-day session to discuss a treaty that would ensure rapid exchange of data and technology and equal access to vaccines. The European Union has pushed for the agreement to be legally binding, but the United States has given up.

The proposal itself underlined that two years after a devastating pandemic that has killed millions, destroyed national economies and robbed many of the world’s children of almost two years of formative experience, there is still no global plan to emerge from it.

While the largely vaccinated West adheres to initial reports that Omicron may cause milder diseases and may be vaccine-sensitive, entire parts of Africa remain essentially unvaccinated. Some countries, such as South Africa, have enough doses but have struggled to disperse them. Others lack freezers, logistics infrastructure and medical personnel to vaccinate their population.

This has given the virus a lot of time and bodies in which to multiply and change.

Travel bans are intended to buy time as scientists determine whether mutations in the new variant will allow it to evade existing vaccines. But they also seemed to suggest that the essential lessons from the early stages of the pandemic need to be learned again: An infection detected somewhere is likely everywhere or can be quite fast, and a single case detected means much more undetected .

On Monday, Portugal reported 13 Omicron cases all linked to a single football team and Scotland reported six, while numbers in South Africa continued to rise.

Experts warned that the variant will reach any part of the world if it has not already arrived.

The leaders of the world’s highest powers insisted they understood this, but their guarantees also had a strong geopolitical smell.

Chinese President Xi Jinping offered a billion doses of the Covid vaccine in Africa, on top of the nearly 200 million Beijing has already sent to the mainland, during a speech at a video conference in Senegal.

The Global Times, a Chinese tabloid controlled by the Communist Party, boasted of China’s success in blocking the transmission of the virus and said the West was now paying the price for its selfish policies. Western countries control most of the resources needed to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, he wrote. But they have failed to curb the spread of the virus and have exposed more and more developing countries to the virus.

Mr Biden said the United States had shipped more free vaccines abroad than any other country in the world combined. Now we need the rest of the world to grow as well, he said.

European health ministers seemed to agree.

The identification of the Omicron variant in southern Africa confirms the urgency to do more to vaccinate the populations of the most vulnerable countries, Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza said at a virtual meeting of health ministers representing seven of the top countries. rich in the world. democracies.

He called on those countries to help administer vaccines. Donating doses is not enough, said Mr. Speranza.

Within days of seeing evidence of a new variant, South African scientists, who run the most advanced laboratories of the continents’ genomic sequence, had identified it. Last Wednesday, they made their findings public.

After other parts of the world, including the United States and the European Union, responded with travel bans to South Africa, South African officials protested that their country was being punished for its speed and transparency.

Responses to the coronavirus have been as diverse as the nations threatened by it.

Israel, the first country to block travel in response to Omicron, gave its intelligence service temporary permission to monitor the telephone records of people with confirmed cases of the variant.

In Italy, which has kept infections low with some of Europe’s strictest rules, the country’s mayors’ conference urged the government to set a national mandate of outdoor masks from December 6th to January 15th as crowds gather for it. buy and celebrate Christmas.

Even Britain, which has taken a weak approach to wearing masks and other measures of social distancing, has stepped up its reaction towards Omicron. The country introduced new masked mandates and new travel restrictions and seemed to soften its opposition to vaccine passports and the demand for masks in restaurants. And Britain’s vaccine advisory board announced on Monday it was suggesting an expansion of the country’s boost program.

In Germany, already hit hard by the latest wave of pandemics, fears of the Omicron variant were evident.

It feels different from the first pieces of information we got about the Delta variant, said Christian Drosten, a prominent German virologist, describing himself as quite worried.

On Monday, the German government announced that Angela Merkel, state governors and Olaf Scholz, who will succeed Mrs Merkel as chancellor next week, had postponed a meeting scheduled for possible nine-day blockade measures.

We need to buy time, said Karl Lauterbach, a Member of Parliament and public health expert who is considered a strong candidate to be the German government’s new health minister, he said on Twitter. Nothing is worse than a new variant in a continuous wave.

Pauline Londeix, a prominent French lawyer for wider access to drugs and transparent drug policies, told France Inter radio on Monday that variants will continue to show up if richer countries do not share more vaccines. We need a much more systematic approach, she said.

The European Commission on Monday urged member states not to impose additional travel restrictions on their citizens.

In contrast to European regulations, China has had a more consistent and clear policy: it is essentially closed as it follows a Covid zero strategy.

China has resolutely held a high wall against visitors from the rest of the world. Foreign nationals and visa holders are only allowed in limited circumstances, causing concerns by some within the business world that Covid restrictions are leaving the country increasingly isolated.

Visitors must be subject to two-week quarantine upon arrival and face possible restrictions on their movement thereafter. Movements are tracked by monitoring smartphone apps, which display color codes that can signal if a person has traveled from or through an area with recent infections, prompting instructions to stay in one place.

In other parts of Asia, people are less focused on eradicating the virus than just surviving it.

This news is terrible, said Gurinder Singh, 57, of New Delhi, who worried his shop was going down. If this virus spreads in India, the government will shut down the country again and we will be forced to beg.

Reporting was contributed by Declan Walsh from Nairobi, Patrick Kingsley from Jerusalem, Image of Carlos Tejada’s landlord from Seoul, Sameer Yasir from Srinagar, India, Lynsey Chutel from South Africa, Aurelien Breeden from Paris, Elian Peltier AND Monika Pronczuk from Brussels, Megan Specia from London, Christopher F. Schuetze from Berlin, Ema Bubola from Rome and Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva.