View allAll Photos Tagged omicron
12/12/2021. London, United Kingdom. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, gives a national television address concerning the Omicron variant of Covid and the government's booster jab program. 10 Downing Street. Picture by Tim Hammond / No 10 Downing Street
Mais um Curso anual de Fotografia vai começar em agosto no Omicron Centro de Fotografia. Novos alunos, novas turmas, professores agregando cada vez mais conhecimento e boa vontade ao nosso curso.
Só há uma maneira de fazer: a maneira certa! Só há uma maneira de encarar nossos objetivos: olhando para o passado e percebendo que sempre devemos estar em movimento.
Aos alunos que chegam minhas boas vindas, aos que se formam,bem, eu não posso me despedir de vocês pois estaremos sempre juntos.
Osvaldo Santos Lima
David Mitchell's Omicron model. Folded from six A4 sheets using my very own silver rectangle version of the folding procedure for the basic unit.
Size: 10.5 cm x 10.5 cm x 10.5 cm
Paper design: Minecraft birch, sandstone, and spruce
Retrato que fiz hoje durante as filmagens do documentário "Leopoldo Plentz em ato contínuo" (título provisório) que eu e o Diretor curitibano Eduardo Baggio estamos dirigindo aqui em Porto Alegre. Agradeço imensamente ao Omicron Centro de Fotografia por produzir este material e, assim, valorizar a fotografia brasileira. Retrato feito com a Hassel com uma bela Hassel no segundo plano.
saudações fotográficas,
Osvaldo Santos Lima
Koni-Omega Microfilm Camera HK-35
Manufactured by Konishiroku Photo Industries (distributed by Berkey Photo) fitted with Omicron 70mm f/5.6
© Dirk HR Spennemann 2012, All Rights Reserved
www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/09/covid-omicron-va...
More states ease mask mandates, citing lower infection, hospitalization numbers
New York and Massachusetts announced Wednesday they will ease mask mandates, joining a long list of states making similar moves in recent days.
In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker (R) said a school mask requirement would end Feb. 28. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) let a mask-or-vaccine mandate for indoor businesses expire as of Thursday, but said masking would continue in schools and then be reevaluated the first week of March.
The governors of both states cited declining infection and hospitalization numbers, along high vaccination rates as allowing eased restrictions.
Here’s what to know
■ Norwegian Cruise Line will drop its mask requirement from covid protocols.
■ Hawaii is in discussions about eliminating all restrictions on travel in the coming months — barring any more covid surges. Currently, travelers have to quarantine for five days unless they provide proof of vaccination or a negative test result.
■ The Centers for Disease Control director says it’s not time to change mask guidance nationwide.
Psaki: Americans living in states that no longer recommend wearing masks should still follow CDC guidelines
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Americans living in states that have pulled back their mask mandates should still follow Centers for Disease Control guidelines.
During the daily news briefing, a reporter asked Psaki if parents, students and teachers living in places like New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware, which have recently announced the end of mask mandates in schools, should still follow the health agency’s guidelines on mask-wearing.
“Yes,” Psaki answered swiftly. “This is where we would advise any American to follow the CDC guidelines.”
Doctors, she said, are “constantly evaluating” recommendations “because the data is changing. The science is changing.” She said the White House respects local governments’ decisions to issue guidance and mandates, but the administration will continue backing experts’ advice, and encouraging Americans to follow it, too.
“No parent who wants to send their kid with a mask should be penalized,” Psaki added. “No teacher or ... who wants to wear a mask should be penalized or school district who makes that choice should be penalized.”
Norwegian Cruise Line to drop mask requirement from covid protocols
Norwegian Cruise Line will soon ease several coronavirus protocols for passengers, including a requirement for customers to wear masks. The changes arrive while the omicron-variant-fueled surge that tore through the cruise industry for months continues an overall decline.
Norwegian said in an update to its Sail Safe guidance that it will nix masking rules for all departures starting March 1. The company recommends passengers wear masks indoors — except when they are actively eating or drinking — and outside when social distancing is not possible. Norwegian will continue to enforce mask requirements on European sailings depending on local government rules.
For sailings that embark after Feb. 28, “the decision to wear a mask covering when onboard is at the discretion of each guest,” the Norwegian guidance said.
In an advisory last updated Jan. 5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintained a Level 4 warning, its most severe, recommending against cruise travel because of the risk of coronavirus exposure. Norwegian Cruise Line said in a statement that it was easing its protocols “given the progress in the current public health environment.”
CDC director says it’s not yet time to change guidance nationwide
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday that despite encouraging trends in coronavirus case rates that have prompted Democratic governors in several states, including New Jersey and Connecticut, to relax key mitigation methods, the country as a whole has not reached that point.
“We’re not there yet,” Walensky said at a White House briefing.
Instead, Walensky said, “We continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission. That’s much of the country right now, in public indoor settings.”
The current seven-day daily average of cases is about 247,300 cases per day, according to CDC data, a decrease of about 44 percent from the previous week. Hospitalizations have also dropped by about 25 percent, while death rates, which lag behind those indicators, have increased by about 3 percent over the previous week to reach what Walensky called “a tragic new mark of 900,000 deaths in this country from covid-19.”
At the briefing, Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, emphasized that booster shots are “critically important” to reducing hospitalizations and deaths and said that the next step in vaccinations for children under 5 would progress only after full review of the vaccine’s safety and efficacy in that age group. He said the need for a fourth dose would depend on data.
“You measure laboratory phenomenon, but you measure the real-world data on the efficacy in preventing, for example, hospital visits as well as hospitalizations,” Fauci said. “And I believe that you’re going to be hearing data about that as the data become available.”
Walensky described the CDC’s ongoing surveillance methods, including wastewater and genomic surveillance as well as monitoring the safety and efficacy of vaccines. She said that any change in guidance would be based on data from these monitoring systems.
“I know there will come a time when we move from a phase of crisis to a point where covid-19 is not disrupting our daily lives,” she said. “And as we all look forward to this next step, I want to instill in everyone that moving forward from this pandemic will be a process that’s led by our surveillance and our data.”
Stacey Abrams apologizes for posing maskless with elementary students: ‘That was a mistake’
Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said Tuesday night that “excitement” prompted her to pose maskless for a photo last week with a group of elementary schoolchildren — a move that has generated a rash of mostly Republican criticism.
On CNN’s “OutFront,” Abrams explained that she was in the Decatur, Ga., elementary school classroom for a Black History Month reading event on Friday. She said she kept her mask on until she reached the lectern and took it off only because she was reading to students who were “listening remotely as well.” Abrams added that she was socially distanced from the students and told them she would take off her mask for the reading.
“And then the excitement after I finished — because it was so much fun working with those kids — I took a picture and that was a mistake,” Abrams told host Erin Burnett. “Protocols matter, and protecting our kids is the most important thing, and anything that can be perceived as undermining that is a mistake. And I apologize.”
As European nations shed restrictions, some experts say bid to move past pandemic may be premature
Denmark started a trend when it announced in late January that it would end most coronavirus restrictions and attempt to forge a path out of the pandemic that other highly vaccinated countries can follow.
“We say goodbye to the restrictions and welcome the life we knew before” the pandemic, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at the time. “As of Feb. 1, Denmark will be open.”
Other European countries have followed — though not all on the same schedule — and set off a furious debate among public health experts about whether it is too soon to let down their guard.
Starting Wednesday, Sweden will begin “phasing out” restrictions, notably by eliminating limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings and the requirement to show proof of vaccination to attend events. Spain and Italy announced an end to their outdoor mask mandates this week, after France did the same last week. Beginning Friday, all testing requirements to enter the United Kingdom will be scrapped for vaccinated travelers.
The governments of these countries reason that now is the time to ease or eliminate restrictions because, while the omicron variant keeps case numbers high in Europe, hospitalizations have been manageable, and a majority of their populations are vaccinated.
The live-with-it strategy has divided public health experts: Some cheer the return to a more normal life after more than two years of restrictions, and others say the easing of rules will send a false signal that omicron is nothing to worry about.
One cause for concern is the vast disparities within Europe in vaccination coverage and national health-care systems’ capacity to handle surges in cases. The Balkans and Eastern and Central European countries are, as a whole, less vaccinated. Cyprus, Armenia and Slovenia have on average recorded some of the largest jumps in daily covid-19 deaths in the world over the past week, according to a Washington Post tracker.
Last week, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news briefing that covid deaths are increasing in many parts of the world and warned it would be “premature for any country either to surrender, or to declare victory” against the coronavirus.
“We’re concerned that a narrative has taken hold in some countries that because of vaccines, and because of omicron’s high transmissibility and lower severity, preventing transmission is no longer possible, and no longer necessary,” he said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
How fast the omicron variant is spreading around the world
In the worldwide chart of coronavirus variants in the link below, the red omicron appears at the top right corner in the very end of November. This chart made in collaboration with GISAID represents countries where genomic sequences are publicly released, so some large countries are not included. It takes about a week for laboratories to identify virus variants, so this data is always time-lagged. Using the variant data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that omicron was 99.9 percent of the covid cases in the country.
The giant blue delta spread began a year ago and covered the world by summer. Omicron has taken over even faster. As of early December, Delta was more than 99 percent of the cases worldwide. In late December Delta was still two-thirds of the cases. Omicron has taken over since then.
These charts show the mix of coronavirus variants in a selection of countries that currently have high levels of omicron. To capture the latest trends, this map uses three-week periods with the most recent ending last Saturday. In any country, the genomic sequences may be concentrated within a particular outbreak, or may miss some outbreaks, so it is not necessarily representative of the country as a whole.
Key coronavirus updates from around the world
Here’s what to know about the top coronavirus stories around the globe from news service reports.
■ Citizens of Saudi Arabia starting Wednesday will have to have received their booster dose of a coronavirus vaccine to travel outside the country, according to state media.
■ The European Union hopes to secure a global treaty to prevent future pandemics, and negotiators are set to meet Wednesday for the first time, Reuters reports.
■ Lawmakers in South Korea are exploring ways to allow people who have covid-19 to vote in next month’s presidential election.
■ Hong Kong health authorities said Wednesday that a chronically ill elderly man who tested positive for the coronavirus in hospital has died. If confirmed as linked to covid-19, the death would be the city’s first in five months, as it battles an omicron-fueled rise in cases.
■ In New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, a demonstration against vaccine mandates entered its second day as similar protests, inspired by truckers in Canada, spread around the world.
Title: Omicron Delta Kappa
Creator: Valdosta State University
Date: March 1981
Description: Alex McFadden; Gabard; ODK induction.
Source: Spectator Negatives, 1980-1985. Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections.
Subject: College students -- Georgia -- Valdosta; Faculty advisors -- Georgia -- Valdosta; Greek letter societies -- Georgia -- Valdosta;
Identifier:
Format: image/jpeg
8 seconds, f/1.2, ISO400, 50mm
Just a quick test to see what the f/1.2 can do...need to get it away from the obnoxious street lights for some real goodness.
Hello, this is the blind astrometry solver. Your results are:
(RA, Dec) center:(280.058247516, 40.6230442039) degrees
(RA, Dec) center (H:M:S, D:M:S):(18:40:13.979, +40:37:22.959)
Orientation:170.44 deg E of N
Pixel scale:62.95 arcsec/pixel
Parity:Reverse ("Left-handed")
Field size :24.93 x 16.61 degrees
Your field contains:
The star Vega (αLyr)
The star δCyg
The star Sheliak (βLyr)
The star θHer
The star 13Lyr
The star κLyr
The star ζ1Lyr
The star δ2Lyr
The star ηLyr
The star θLyr
View in World Wide Telescope (Warning: this requires Silverlight2)
&creditsUrl=&ra=280.058247516&y=475&x=713&rotation=170.44&dec=40.6230442039&thumb=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2510/3719977245_35187a2d20_t.jpg){kind=link}
December 20, 2021 - New York City - Governor Kathy Hochul, joined by Jackie Bray, Acting Commissioner of New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, and Director of State Operations Kathryn Garcia updates New Yorkers on the Covid-19 spread in New York State, particularly on the Omicron variant, during a press briefing Monday December 20, 2021 in New York City. (Kevin P. Coughlin / Office of the Governor)
OMICRON KAPPA UPSILON, the top twelve percent of the graduating class who rank highest in scholastic, technical, clinical and professional achievements during the entire four year dental curriculum.
PRESENTER: DR. WEYANT
AWARDEES: KAITLYN BURGESS, EMILY CHOU, ZACHARY MILLS, DOUGLAS PORR, GREGORY SENCAK, NICHOLAS SHIREY, RICHARD VARGO, LOUIS WENGER, PEINI ZHU
Fotos para o TCC do curso anual da Omicron Centro de Fotografia para o tema: O mundo lúdico da criança
Algumas imagens que fiz durante o curso de cinematografia digital que o núcleo de cinema do Omicron centro de fotografia organizou com o grande Carlos Ebert.
Hoje adorei ver o espaço com mais de 45 alunos divididos entre o workshop de moda com o Danilo Russo e aulas comigo, com o Leandro Taques e o Paulo Henrique no curso anual de fotografia. Amanhã tem aula prática...vamos lá!
Osvaldo Santos Lima
30/11/2021. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson-Covid-19 Press Conference. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs a Covid-19 press conference at No9 Downing Street on the Omicron coronavirus variant with the health secretary Sajid Javid and Chief Executive of NHS England Amanda Pritchard. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
Repository: Duke University Archives. Durham, North Carolina, USA. library.duke.edu/uarchives
Trying to locate this photo at the Duke University Archives? You’ll find it in the University Archives Photographic Negative Collection, box 13.
Nesta quarta-feira às 19h abre a exposição com o tema "Família" com fotografias dos formando de nossas turmas do curso anual de 2009!
Anuncio aos quatro ventos pois ouço, diversas vezes, que poucos conhecem o Omicron Centro de Fotografia, que já ouviram falar de outras escolas mas não de nosso trabalho. Talvez nosso marketing seja às avessas pensando mais no aluno dentro de sala do que no mercado. Nossos alunos sabem disso, vivenciaram uma maneira de fazer e ensinar fotografia que funciona há 18 anos (colocando-nos como mais antiga instituição de ensino da fotografia em funcionamento deste estado), com a melhor infraestrutura ao ponto de termos um estúdio maior que muitas faculdades, com profissionais com formação rara num mercado onde poucos podem contar com professores com mestrado na área e nós temos vários. Salas confortáveis, espaço de exposições, uma localização num dos mais nobres bairros de Curitiba...é, pensando bem, temos tudo para continuarmos focados dentro da sala de aula onde esta a peça mais importante de marketing de uma empresa: o cliente.
Convido a todos para nesta quarta-feira conhecer nossos novos talentos,
saudações fotográficas,
Osvaldo Santos Lima
More than 750 athletes participated in the 2013 Hudson Valley Regional Special Olympics May 4 at West Point. Supporting the event were more than 1,000 cadets from 4th Regiment volunteering as sponsors and escorts as well as a dozen corps squad and competitive club cadet teams cheering on the athletes at Shea Stadium, Arvin Gymnasium and Gillis Field House. In its 29th year, the regional spring games were presented by Omicron Delta Kappa, the National Leadership Honor Society. Class of 2013 Cadet Matthew Walsh was the cadet in charge. U.S. Army photo by Mike Strasser/USMA PAO
www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/03/covid-omicron-va...
FDA will rigorously review vaccines for children under 5, surgeon general says
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy is seeking to reassure parents that the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for young children will be thoroughly reviewed, after the company’s submission to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency-use authorization this week.
“Please know that the FDA will not cut any corners in their review process. They know that they are the gold standard that all of us rely on,” Murthy said Wednesday during a White House news briefing.
The FDA requested that data from the two-dose trials be presented to initiate a “rolling submission” process in hopes of expediting the launch, according to a joint statement from Pfizer and BioNTech. The unusual approach has raised questions among some parents about whether they should rush to get their young children the shot as soon as it’s available. Only 22 percent of children ages 5 to 11 are vaccinated, according to Washington Post data.
The omicron wave in the United States has caused millions of families to struggle with unreliable child care, irregular school and day-care closures, quarantines and fears about their children getting infected. Regulators could approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s authorization request as early as the end of this month.
Here’s what to know
■ The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday that starting in early spring, the 64 million people on Medicare will be able to get free over-the-counter coronavirus tests from certain pharmacies.
■ The U.S. Army said Wednesday that it would immediately begin removing soldiers who have refused a coronavirus vaccination, a move that Army Secretary Christine Wormuth justified as necessary for military readiness.
■ A tearful video posted on social media by a Belgian skeleton racer has drawn attention to coronavirus troubles within the Olympics community as the Beijing Winter Games open Friday.
L.A.’s mayor took a maskless photo with Magic Johnson, defying covid rules. His defense: ‘I’m holding my breath’
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Over the weekend, Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson took to Twitter to share several photos he’d taken as the L.A. Rams faced off against the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC championship game.
“Hanging out at SoFi Stadium today!” Johnson tweeted, referencing the Rams’ home in Inglewood, Calif., along with four pictures that appeared to be taken from a luxury suite.
But the photos were quickly scrutinized by fans and social media users. Johnson was posing with several Democratic California politicians, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who posted her own maskless selfie from the game.
None were wearing masks, which are required in Los Angeles County for all indoor public settings and outdoor “mega events.” Stadium policy also requires anyone not “actively eating or drinking” to wear face coverings.
Four of Boris Johnson’s top aides quit, while ‘Partygate’ scandal rocks Downing Street
LONDON — Four top aides to embattled British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced their resignations on Thursday, as the British government continued to be rocked by a scandal dubbed “Partygate.”
During a chaotic night, commentators were attempting to figure out who jumped ship — and who was pushed.
Johnson’s office is under investigation for a string of gatherings over the past two years that are alleged to have violated the government’s own coronavirus restrictions. A report published this week by senior civil servant Sue Gray found that there were “failures of leadership and judgment” at 10 Downing Street. The London Metropolitan Police are looking into 12 of the most serious alleged breaches.
San Francisco allowing extra booster shot for Johnson & Johnson recipients
In a break with federal guidance, San Francisco health officials are allowing adult residents who received the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine to get a second booster shot.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a booster shot for recipients of J&J’s one-dose vaccine but has not endorsed a third dose. In an advisory updated last month, the San Francisco Department of Public Health described the allowance of an extra booster as an “accommodation” for those who request it. The department cited studies showing that three shots are necessary to maintain protection against the omicron coronavirus variant as immunity wanes over time.
“Although this research has so far focused on persons who received a primary series with non-J&J vaccines,” it said, “we believe that similar studies in persons whose primary series was a single J&J vaccine dose would yield similar results showing that 3 doses are needed for optimal protection.”
About 16 million people received Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose regimen in the United States. That number represents a tiny sliver of the nation’s fully vaccinated population of 212 million, and some who got J&J shots have complained of being overlooked in federal guidelines. In December, U.S. health officials recommended the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna shots over those made by J&J, citing the rare but potentially fatal risk of blood clots associated with the latter.
Under the San Francisco measure, clinics operated by the health department are accommodating “off-label” requests for a third dose from J&J vaccine recipients who are older than 18 and five months past their initial booster. Eligibility is limited to San Francisco residents, who must attest that they have consulted with a health-care provider about the additional dose.
San Francisco health authorities have acted ahead of federal officials at least once before, accommodating requests for an mRNA booster from some J&J recipients. The federal government later followed, recommending in October that those who got the one-dose vaccine should seek booster shots.
Key coronavirus updates from around the world
■ South Africa’s Afrigen Biologics has used the publicly available sequence of Moderna’s mRNA coronavirus vaccine to make its own version, which could be tested in humans before the end of the year, the company’s top executive said. Afrigen’s product would be the first made based on a widely used vaccine without the assistance and approval of the developer.
■ In Bangladesh, the government has extended school closures implemented last month amid a rise in cases due to the omicron variant. Teachers and students had returned to in-person classes briefly in September after 543 days of closure during the pandemic.
■ Sweden said it will lift pandemic restrictions next week, despite experiencing record levels of infections. Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said at a news conference, “It is becoming time to open up Sweden again.”
■ Bali will welcome its first direct flight carrying foreign tourists in nearly two years on Thursday. The Indonesian resort island is hoping to boost tourism revenue but will still require vaccinated travelers to quarantine for five to seven days at hotels.
■ In Venezuela, medical charity Doctors Without Borders is providing mental health care to covid patients, their families and medical workers in two public hospitals in the capital, to support the country’s run-down health system.
■ In China, President Xi Jinping said in a video message Thursday that “the world is turning its eyes to China, and China is ready. We will do our best to deliver to the world a streamlined, safe and splendid Games.” The Beijing Olympics officially open Friday amid an outbreak of coronavirus infections.
O Omicron Centro de Fotografia está digitalizando, através de um super coolscan 5000 da Nikon, todo o acervo de fotografia analógica do Professor Osvaldo Santos Lima. São milhares de imagens que serão digitalizadas em alta resolução e com 16 bits de profundidade de cor. As imagens serão indexadas e arquivadas em hds externos de alta capacidade. Cada imagem ocupa o espaço de 128 Mb em média.
"Esta imagem, feita por volta de 15 anos atrás, me anima a ensinar aos meus alunos o respeito que se deve ter com as suas fotografias. A digitalização de todo o meu acervo pessoal, negativos e cromos, deve demorar anos mas trará a luz imagens desconhecidas do grande público." Relata o fotógrafo e fundador de nosso centro Prof. Osvaldo Santos Lima.
O Omicron Centro de Fotografia oferece o serviço de laboratório digital de "fineprint" e agora de digitalização de acervos em 35 mm.
Saudações fotográficas,
Equipe Omicron.
www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/14/world/omicron-covid-vacci...
Omicron pushes hospitals to the brink in two dozen U.S. states.
The extremely contagious Omicron variant is fueling an enormous coronavirus wave that is pushing hospitals close to their capacity limits in about two dozen states, according to data posted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
At least 80 percent of staffed hospital beds were occupied in 24 states on Thursday, including Georgia, Maryland and Massachusetts, the figures show.
[Dr Walensky testified that hospitals were telling her they had plenty of empty beds, just not enough staff to staff them. See news.yahoo.com/decoding-biden-health-officials-told-00083...]
More troubling, the data showed that in 18 states and Washington, D.C., at least 85 percent of beds in adult intensive care units were full, with the most acute scarcity of beds in Alabama, Missouri, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Texas.
The pressure on I.C.U. capacity comes as the Omicron variant has touched off a nearly vertical rise in infections and hospitalizations. The country as a whole and 26 states have reported more coronavirus cases in the past week than in any other seven-day period.
In that time, an average of more than 803,000 coronavirus cases have been reported each day in the United States, an increase of 133 percent from two weeks ago, according to a New York Times database, and 25 states and territories have reported their highest weekly caseloads yet. Deaths are up 53 percent to an average of roughly 1,871 a day.
That has helped push the country’s average rate of hospitalizations above last winter’s peak. Hospitalizations of people testing positive for coronavirus over that week are up to more than 148,000 a day, a record. The numbers are rising fastest in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the Times database.
(The hospitalization figures include people who test positive for the virus after being admitted for conditions unrelated to Covid-19, but there is no national data showing how many people are in that category.)
Since Thanksgiving, the White House has sent more than 350 military doctors, nurses, medics and other personnel to 24 states to help hospitals with staffing challenges, President Biden said this week, and plans to send an additional 1,000 service members to six hard-hit states. That is in addition to the more than 14,000 National Guard members deployed in 49 states to help staff hospitals and other medical facilities, he and other officials said.
On Wednesday, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said the state would spend $40 million in federal funds to hire more staff to help hospitals there for the next 60 days because “we know we’re going to continue to see a sharp rise in cases from the Omicron variant.” Minnesota’s hospitals have been struggling to keep up since the fall, when the National Guard was called in to help with a flood of patients infected by the deadlier Delta variant.
Also Wednesday, Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon said she was sending an additional 700 members of the state’s National Guard — bringing the total deployed to 1,200 members — to help hospitals deal with a rise in coronavirus patients. “Our hospitals are under extreme pressure,” she wrote on Twitter.
One day earlier Gov. Janet Mills of Maine said she was activating 169 members of the National Guard to help with capacity constraints at hospitals, joining more than 200 members already deployed in the state.
“I wish we did not have to take this step,” Ms. Mills said in a statement, “but the rise in hospitalizations — caused primarily by those who are not vaccinated — is stretching the capacity of our health care system thin, jeopardizing care for Maine people, and putting increased strain on our already exhausted health care workers.”
www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/01/14/1072188527/f...
For the 36 countries with the lowest vaccination rates, supply isn't the only issue
In the United States and many other wealthy countries, you can get a free COVID vaccine at supermarkets, pharmacies and clinics.
In other countries, it's a very different story.
"The vaccine is not available in the North (of Yemen)," says Jasmin Lavoie with the Norwegian Refugee Council, who's based in the northern city of Sana'a. "If a person wanted to be vaccinated, that person would have to go to the south. So drive around 15 to 20 hours crossing front lines in the mountains." Even then, after such a treacherous journey through a war zone, it's not clear if doses would be available. Like many low-income countries, Yemen has struggled to get hold of vaccine.
"Yemen has been one of the places with the lowest vaccination rates in the world," says Lavoie. "And that's despite the fact that we've experienced three waves of COVID." Currently fewer than 2% of Yemenis are fully vaccinated.
Yemen is one of 36 countries that fall below the 10% immunization threshold, some with rates under 2%. Much of the mid-section of Africa is in that category, including powerful economic and political players like Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal.
By contrast, many wealthy countries have fully vaccinated more than 80% of their citizens.
Why Africa lags so far behind
Maaza Seyoum with the African Alliance, a South Africa-based advocacy group, says there are many factors playing in to the low vaccination rates in many countries on the continent but the biggest issue is simply that African nations have struggled to get doses.
"Initially, 100 percent, I would say the problem was a lack of access (to vaccines) and a global system that did not prioritize African countries," Maaza says. Wealthy nations bought up far more pharmaceutical firms vaccine production than they could even use. The WHO-backed COVAX program faltered as it relied heavily on voluntary donations and on manufacturers in India who were blocked from exporting doses when COVID case numbers skyrocketed on the sub-continent. Some African countries managed to get supplies from China but Beijing often prioritized donations to wealthier trading partners.
That situation has changed, says Maaza. Recently vaccine deliveries to Africa have increased. But now there are new problems: the shipments are haphazard and sometimes consist of less popular brands that are about to expire.
"Now we're seeing the sort of drip, drip, drip of vaccines," she says. "People are waiting for vaccines to come. They come, then they stop."
This unpredictable supply chain, she says, makes it nearly impossible for African countries to plan nationwide vaccination drives. And in some of these places where hardly anyone has gotten the jab, rumors about the mysterious vaccine have flourished and augmented vaccine hesitancy.
"The truth is, there is vaccine hesitancy everywhere," Maaza says. "But as people are waiting, it leaves kind of a fertile ground for these rumors to circulate."
Which makes convincing people to come to a clinic and get immunized even more of a challenge.
What's behind those under 10% vaccination numbers
The World Health Organization set a goal of trying to push all countries to 40% vaccine coverage by the end of 2021. The 36 countries still under 10% obviously didn't even get close. Kate O'Brien, the director of immunization and vaccines for the World Health Organization, says this is a significant problem.
"For countries that are struggling to get even above 10%, what this means is that health-care workers are not fully vaccinated yet," she says. "It means older age populations, those who have underlying medical conditions, the people at highest risk are not fully protected yet."
She acknowledges vaccine supply inequity as a major part of why rates are so low in these three dozen countries but says there are other reasons too. Many of these countries had health systems that were struggling even before the pandemic to meet local medical needs. Some of them have needed to upgrade refrigeration systems to be able to store certain mRNA vaccines at extremely low temperatures. Others need syringes. All of this takes money that many low-income nations health ministries may not have.
"A COVID vaccine campaign does require funding," O'Brien says. Countries need money "to deploy new health workers and to assure that the clinics have the resources that they need."
And while there has been some international assistance to lower-income nations to help, that financing has also at times been haphazard and unpredictable.
Ongoing conflicts present another obstacle
Away from Africa, the other nations that haven't yet gotten above 10% COVID vaccine coverage are some of the most troubled in the world, including Yemen as well as Syria, Afghanistan and Haiti.
Currently the armed conflict has displaced 4 million of 30 million Yemenis from their homes. Various groups control different parts of the country. According to the U.N. more than 2/3rds of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance. Yet international aid agencies have struggled to meet those needs and keep their operations running in the country due to the ongoing insecurity and a lack of funding.
For most people in Yemen, life is incredibly difficult. COVID vaccinations are "not on the top of the list of priorities for many people in Yemen," Jasmin Lavoie with NRC says. He says most Yemenis spend their days trying to find food, shelter, decent toilets and worrying about whether they'll have to flee fighting once again. "These are reasons why people are not getting vaccinated too," he adds.
There are similar issues in other conflict zones. "In a place like Afghanistan, in a place like Syria, COVID is not their number one priority," says Paul Spiegel, who runs the Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins University.
Spiegel returned to Baltimore from working in Afghanistan in mid-December. "[Vaccination] campaigns are happening," he says but adds that the immunization drives are constrained by the limited shipments of vaccine. "A fair bit of it is Johnson and Johnson, which makes a lot of sense in Afghanistan situation because it's just one dose," he notes.
But similar to Yemen, the social upheaval in Afghanistan, with the U.S. departing and the Taliban returning to power, has pushed COVID to the backburner. Vaccine drives are not a top priority for the Taliban, even though it has said it supports vaccination drives by COVAX and the U.N.
Nor is it a priority among Afghans. "Right now there's such a dire humanitarian situation there," he says. "[Afghans] are worried about getting food on the table, they're worried about feeding their kids. And so COVID is not a priority for the average person."
This is a Florida College or University fraternity or club. Found with other early photos from Florida.
30/11/2021. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson-Covid-19 Press Conference. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs a Covid-19 press conference at No9 Downing Street on the Omicron coronavirus variant with the health secretary Sajid Javid and Chief Executive of NHS England Amanda Pritchard. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
This photo's title, which also names the SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2) strain currently causing a global healthcare scare, would be better for a thriller-genre book or film about viral terrorism.
Cue the movie trailer: Six survivors. Keanu Reeves. Daniel Craig. Angelina Jolie. Regé-Jean Page. Kelly Marie Tran. And the esteemed Charlton Heston (appearing as a 3-D hologram). The Omicron Variant. The premise is so frightening that the screenwriters have each gotten three COVID-19 booster shots. You, too, will never think the same way about vaccines—and who gets them when supplies are lacking and the HAZMAT-suited stack body bags in front of your house. Oh, did we forget to mention that they’re empty and waiting to be filled—when your, ah, quarantine is over. The Omicron Variant. Who will survive viral armageddon?
As I write on Dec. 10, 2021, San Diego County health officials have identified two Omicron cases (e.g. infections)—and both individuals are considered to be fully vaccinated, meaning two shots and a booster. Make what you will about the vaccines’ effectiveness; I won’t offer opinion.
But I will say this: If, as Los Angeles Times reports, the variant was in California wastewater before the World Health Organization raised alarm, Omicron is everywhere. Everyone should be relieved that, while fairly infectious, the strain presents mild symptoms—unlike the fictitious film of the same name.
29/11/2021. London, United Kingdom. Health Secretary Sajid Javid holds a call with his counterparts from the G7 to discuss the outbreak of the Omicron Covid-19 virus at the Department of Health and Social Care. Picture by Lauren Hurley / DHSC
www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-aud-nw-nyt-omicron-...
Omicron dread is here — and Americans are already exhausted
MIAMI — The omicron variant has turned a season of joy into one of weariness and resentment amid a new coronavirus surge.
With days to go before Christmas, Americans are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Of reworking plans to adapt to the latest virus risks. Of searching for at-home tests and not finding them. Of wondering whether, after two years of avoiding COVID-19, or surviving it, or getting vaccinated and maybe even boosted, omicron is the variant they inevitably catch.
A sense of dread about omicron’s rapid spread — the fastest of any variant yet — has swept through the Northeast and Upper Midwest, which were already swamped with delta variant cases and hospitalizations. And unease has burgeoned even in states and territories like Florida, Hawaii and Puerto Rico that had moved past a terrible summer of delta and, until recently, experienced a relative virus lull.
“I’m mad,” said Mabel De Beunza, a publicist in her early 40s who spent 90 minutes at a drive-thru testing line in downtown Miami on Monday after experiencing cold symptoms. No matter what her test result, she has decided against seeing her mother, who is immunocompromised, on Christmas.
We’ve done so much, and still have this,” said De Beunza, whose family is vaccinated and boosted. “It’s been such a rough year.”
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden took new action to combat the surge, pledging to deploy 1,000 military medical professionals to hospitals, open new testing and vaccination sites and distribute 500 million rapid tests to the public for free.
Some state officials have also imposed new vaccination and mask requirements.
“I know you’re tired,” Biden said from the White House. “I know you’re frustrated.”
He emphasized that the tools available to prevent, diagnose and treat COVID are much more plentiful now than they were in the earliest days of the pandemic.
“We should all be concerned about omicron but not panicked,” he said. “This is not March of 2020.
Conversations with more than two dozen people across the country revealed that, more than panicked, Americans are simply exhausted by the emotional pandemic roller coaster and confused by mixed messages from experts and leaders about appropriate precautions.
Alyssa Dipirro, 30, was waiting in line for a COVID test in Orlando, Florida, on Tuesday but had not been vaccinated. Earlier in the pandemic, she did not want to do so while pregnant, despite assurances from public health experts that the shots were safe for pregnant women.
Since then, she has not been reassured by reports of vaccinated people getting COVID infections, as is happening more frequently with omicron, even though the vaccines remain effective at warding off severe disease. “They still have to get tested if they get exposed,” she said. “So what’s the point of this?”
Florida, which long ago did away with almost all virus restrictions, is recording an average of 7,068 daily coronavirus cases, a 294% increase over the past two weeks, according to data compiled by The New York Times.
The rise was sudden and jarring after a couple of months of relative virus quiet that followed a delta surge that killed more than 22,000 Floridians, more than any previous virus wave, according to Jason L. Salemi, an epidemiologist at the University of South Florida.
But winter is Florida’s high season, drawing part-time residents and throngs of visitors. Some attendees reported testing positive for COVID this month after going to events related to the Art Basel Miami Beach fair.
On Tuesday, CDR Health, a contractor providing monoclonal antibody treatments at some state-run clinics, temporarily closed its sites in Miami-Dade, Broward, Lee and St. Lucie counties because of a lack of supply. The Florida Department of Health insisted that some sites closed for training but acknowledged that some appointments had to be rescheduled and that the state was trying to secure a resupply.
“All my friends in Miami have COVID right now,” Fabiana Vegas, 21, said Tuesday as she waited in line to get tested in Orlando. “I wanted to go to Miami this Christmas, and I can’t.”
Cases have also skyrocketed in Hawaii, with the state reporting a daily average that is 468% higher than it was two weeks ago, according to data from The Times.
Hilton R. Raethel, president of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, called the increase dramatic and blamed pandemic fatigue for the low rates of booster shots among residents. About 17% of fully vaccinated residents had received a booster as of Sunday, the second-lowest rate in the country.
" ‘I’ve done so much for so long, I’m sort of reluctant to do any more,’ " Raethel said, summarizing public sentiment.
Nowhere has there been a larger explosion of cases than in Puerto Rico, which has recorded a daily average of 1,098 — a 762% increase from two weeks ago, according to data from the Times. The island has reported more cases in the past seven days than any other week in the pandemic, prompting Gov. Pedro R. Pierluisi to authorize new restrictions, including requiring vaccinations and negative tests for large events.
Marisa Gómez Cuevas, 34, tested positive after going out to a bar in Old San Juan to meet friends that she had not seen in months. A few days later, she started getting calls from some of those friends, saying they felt sick. One ended up in a hospital.
She lost a gig she had with a theater production last week, and is scared to return to her waitressing job.
“I worry there will be another outbreak, and it will have to close again,” she said of the small family-owned restaurant where she works.
In other parts of the country that have been suffering from high caseloads for longer, restrictions have offered residents some peace of mind. Boston mandated proof of vaccines in restaurants and other indoor spaces Monday, giving some relief to Christopher Glionna, the managing partner at the Aquitaine Group, which owns several eateries in the city’s South End.
“It is good for business,” he said. “People want to get together.”
And many people said they intended to keep their holiday travel plans, regardless of the news about omicron. At a train station in Providence, Rhode Island, on Monday, Sheryl Leary, 51, and her husband, Sean Leary, 53, prepared to leave for New York. The Rockettes concert they had tickets for was canceled, but they were still on to see “Wicked” on Broadway. Both Learys are vaccinated.
“We don’t want to have COVID or give it to anyone,” Sheryl Leary said. But, her husband added, those concerns were not enough to scrap their trip.
“It’s part of life,” Sean Leary said of the virus. “What are you going to do, stay home?”
Still, in states that have not yet experienced the latest virus surge, some people are already on edge.
In Berkeley, California, Brian Edwards-Tiekert, 43, a public radio host, and his wife changed their COVID protocols this week after realizing how fast omicron was spreading.
“We’re not going to see anyone without testing,” he said. “And we’re upgrading from cloth masks to N95s or the equivalent.”
His wife ran out to pharmacies in search of at-home rapid tests and found only three — enough to use before a dinner Wednesday, but not to prepare for another social engagement Thursday.
The emotional whiplash inherent in all the worry and planning is draining, Edwards-Tiekert said, describing two tabs permanently open on his web browser: the California rain forecast and a COVID tracking dashboard.
“I guess I’m a little bit numbed at this point,” he said.
www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/01/covid-omicron-va...
No indication new version of omicron causes more severe illness, WHO says
World Health Organization officials said Tuesday that a new version of the omicron variant known as BA. 2 appears to be slightly more transmissible. But they said there is no evidence that it causes more-severe disease and cautioned that information is still limited.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference Tuesday that the global health organization is tracking four “sublineages” of the omicron variant, which has fueled a new wave of infections, hospitalizations and deaths. “This virus will continue to evolve,” Tedros said, adding that vaccines also may need to evolve.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on covid-19, said the agency is working with thousands of experts to track the coronavirus. There is “no indication that there’s a change in severity” with BA. 2, she said.
Officials said the WHO will share more information on BA. 2 as it is available.
WHO leaders also expressed concern about a recent rise in covid-19 deaths in most regions of the world, and Tedros said more cases have been reported in the past 10 weeks — since omicron was identified — than in all of 2020.
Asked about countries that have moved to lift coronavirus restrictions, Van Kerkhove said: “Many countries have not gone through the peak of omicron yet. … Now is not the time to lift everything all at once.” She urged countries to increase vaccination and to use mask-wearing and distancing to slow the virus’s spread, although she acknowledged that each country’s situation is different.
Tedros said the WHO’s goal to have 70 percent of the global population vaccinated by this summer remains attainable.
“Ending this pandemic is not a matter of chance,” he said. “It’s a matter of choice.” By meeting vaccination goals, he said, the world “can end the pandemic.”
Key coronavirus updates from around the world
Here’s what to know about the top coronavirus stories around the globe:
■ Portugal’s prime minister said Tuesday that he has tested positive for the coronavirus, two days after his landslide election victory and just as he starts forming his new government. António Costa said he will self-isolate for seven days, in accordance with his country’s pandemic rules.
■ Denmark on Tuesday became the first European Union country to lift all of its coronavirus restrictions, relying on vaccinations to tackle the omicron variant. The country said it will remove requirements for masks and covid passes and scrap limited opening hours for shops and restaurants. Neighboring Norway said it will scrap most of its remaining lockdown measures, effective immediately, as a spike in infections is unlikely to jeopardize health services.
■ Pakistan will begin a nationwide door-to-door vaccination drive starting Tuesday, its National Command and Operation Center said. About 55,000 mobile vaccination teams will provide the doses, including boosters, and aim to vaccinate more than 35 million people.
■ Rwanda reopened its border with Uganda to truckers this week, after nearly three years. Regular travelers will still be restricted to only essential trips, authorities said, a decision that disappointed traders hoping for a return to normal business.
■ As the Beijing Winter Olympics kick off later this week, officials in China said Tuesday that the Games’ coronavirus situation is within the “expected controllable range,” despite a number of positive cases being detected. About 200 cases have been reported since Jan. 23 among airport arrivals and those in the “closed loop” area of the Games.
Pregnant journalist says she’s returning to New Zealand after strict covid rules left her in Afghanistan
A pregnant journalist who said she chose to stay in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan because her native New Zealand did not allow her to return due to strict coronavirus restrictions said the government reversed course — and that she would be going home “at the beginning of March to give birth to our baby girl.”
Charlotte Bellis, 35, from Christchurch, said in a statement Tuesday that her emergency application to return despite New Zealand’s closed border was approved overnight after a public back-and-forth with the government.
Bellis attracted international attention when she said in a New Zealand Herald column on Friday that the Taliban offered her “safe haven” as a pregnant and unmarried woman — whereas her own government refused her application for an emergency medical exemption to the lottery system that assigns returning citizens a spot in “managed isolation and quarantine,” or MIQ.
New Zealand officials said Tuesday that Bellis was given a voucher for a spot in government-mandated quarantine because they assessed that she faced threats to her safety in Afghanistan, according to the Associated Press.
Bellis, who says she does not feel like she is in danger in Kabul, said in her statement the government should expand its criteria for medical exemptions, which currently rely on travel being time-critical.
Pandemic creates tons of medical waste, threatening environment and human health, WHO says
The coronavirus pandemic is estimated to have created tens of thousands of tons of extra medical waste around the world, threatening the environment and human health, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.
The pandemic has put a “tremendous strain on health care waste management systems around the world,” the WHO said, calling for improvements.
In a report published Tuesday, the United Nations agency estimated that about 87,000 tons of personal protective equipment was procured between March 2020 and November 2021 and shipped to support countries’ responses through a joint U.N. emergency initiative.
“Most of this equipment is expected to have ended up as waste,” the report’s authors said.
They noted that their estimate is only an indication of the scale of the waste problem and doesn’t take into account equipment acquired by countries outside the U.N. initiative or waste generated by the public through the purchase of items such as disposable masks.
A previous study by a group of researchers based in China and the United States last year found that some 8 million metric tons of pandemic-related plastic waste had been created by 193 countries, with about 26,000 tons of that ending up in the world’s oceans, where it threatens to disrupt marine life and further pollute beaches.
According to the WHO report, more than 140 million test kits, with a potential to generate 2,600 tons of noninfectious waste, mostly plastic, and some 731,000 liters of chemical waste — enough to fill a third of an Olympic-size swimming pool — have been shipped by the U.N. Meanwhile, more than 8 billion vaccine doses have been administered globally, producing 144,000 tons of waste in the form of syringes, needles and safety boxes.
“It is absolutely vital to provide health workers with the right PPE,” said Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program. “But it is also vital to ensure that it can be used safely without impacting on the surrounding environment.”
About 30 percent of health-care facilities — the majority of them in the least developed countries — are not equipped to handle pre-pandemic waste loads, let alone the coronavirus waste.
“This potentially exposes health workers to needle stick injuries, burns and pathogenic microorganisms, while also impacting communities living near poorly managed landfills and waste disposal sites through contaminated air from burning waste, poor water quality or disease carrying pests,” the WHO said.
U.S. bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor tests positive for coronavirus at Beijing Olympics
BEIJING — Elana Meyers Taylor, the most decorated American female Olympic bobsledder in history, revealed in a social media post that she tested positive for the coronavirus on Saturday within the “closed loop” here, jeopardizing her ability to compete — although bobsled’s late placement on the Beijing 2022 schedule offers a shred of hope.
Meyers Taylor, 37, said she tested positive on Saturday in China, two days after she and her family — husband Nic Taylor, a fellow bobsledder and alternate for Team USA, and their nearly 2-year-old son Nico — arrived in the country. Because she is asymptomatic, she is quarantining at an official Beijing 2022 isolation facility and is required to test negative twice on different days to be released and allowed to compete.
Although the Olympics begin this week and the Opening Ceremonies are Friday, the bobsled competition doesn’t start until Feb. 13, with training runs starting Feb. 10 at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre.
30/11/2021. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Boris Johnson-Covid-19 Press Conference. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson chairs a Covid-19 press conference at No9 Downing Street on the Omicron coronavirus variant with the health secretary Sajid Javid and Chief Executive of NHS England Amanda Pritchard. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
It's official, I'm a candidate for Alpha Sigma Kappa Sorority! These are the other girls in my class! We'll be going through member education in the upcoming weeks, leading up to Initiation Week (I Week) in March.
The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi greeting new members during the chapter's second ever Bid Day at TCU. For those of you who don't know what Bid Day is...and I didn't either...all the sororities assemble on the Campus Commons. Then the newbies are released one chapter at a time to run toward their new sisters. It's kinda like a cattle drive, but with a much happier ending.
I also rolled about 90 seconds of video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qnt0kMEWWQ&list=UUlJLPNVzTQB...
You can learn more about AOII here:
www.facebook.com/AOIILambdaRho
This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.
Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:
www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/
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Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:
17 Ene 2022 . Secretaría de Transporte . Por Ómicron se refuerza la supervisión al transporte público .
corridor leading to bridge and vertical ladder. Top right is first officer's office and a head next to that. On the left is an office for rotating use
The Lambda Rho chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi greeting new members during the chapter's second ever Bid Day at TCU. For those of you who don't know what Bid Day is...and I didn't either...all the sororities assemble on the Campus Commons. Then the newbies are released one chapter at a time to run toward their new sisters. It's kinda like a cattle drive, but with a much happier ending.
I also rolled about 90 seconds of video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qnt0kMEWWQ&list=UUlJLPNVzTQB...
You can learn more about AOII here:
www.facebook.com/AOIILambdaRho
This album is part of the event coverage for the Fort Worth Portrait Project. The project tells the story of Fort Worth from 2014 - 2044 one captioned portrait at a time, but I also enjoy covering events like this one too.
Please follow the Fort Worth Portrait Project:
www.redeemedexpressions.com/fort-worth-portrait-project/
www.facebook.com/fortworthportraitproject
www.twitter.com/FWPortraitProj
www.instagram.com/fortworthportraitproject
Do you want to be featured in the project? Just head to the following site with a photo and a caption:
10/02/2023 Florianópolis, SC. Novas Vacinas contra COVID-19. O estado de Santa Catarina recebeu novas doses das vacinas da Pfizer para diferentes faixa etárias além da bivalente que protege contra a variante Ômicron.
Para identificar os frascos :
A bivalente o frasco com tampa cinza, bebês e crianças entre 6 meses e 5 anos frasco tampa vermelha e crianças e adolescentes tampa laranja.
Foto Ricardo Wolffenbüttel /SECOM
www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00215-2
Where did Omicron come from? Three key theories
The highly transmissible variant emerged with a host of unusual mutations. Now scientists are trying to work out how it evolved.
Little more than two months after it was first spotted in South Africa, the Omicron variant of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has spread around the world faster than any previous versions. Scientists have tracked it in more than 120 countries, but remain puzzled by a key question: where did Omicron come from?
There’s no transparent path of transmission linking Omicron to its predecessors. Instead, the variant has an unusual array of mutations, which it evolved entirely outside the view of researchers. Omicron is so different from earlier variants, such as Alpha and Delta, that evolutionary virologists estimate its closest-known genetic ancestor probably dates back to more than a year ago, some time after mid-2020 (ref. 1). “It just came out of nowhere,” says Darren Martin, a computational biologist at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
The question of Omicron’s origins is of more than academic importance. Working out under what conditions this highly transmissible variant arose might help scientists to understand the risk of new variants emerging, and suggest steps to minimize it, says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Saskatoon, Canada. “It’s very difficult to try to mitigate a risk that you can’t even remotely wrap your head around,” she says.
The World Health Organization’s recently formed Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) met in January to discuss Omicron’s origins. The group is expected to release a report in early February, according to Marietjie Venter, a medical virologist at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, who chairs SAGO.
Ahead of that report, scientists are investigating three theories. Although researchers have sequenced millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes, they might simply have missed a series of mutations that eventually led to Omicron. Alternatively, the variant might have evolved mutations in one person, as part of a long-term infection. Or it could have emerged unseen in other animal hosts, such as mice or rats.
For now, whichever idea a researcher favours “often comes down to gut feeling rather than any sort of principled argument”, says Richard Neher, a computational biologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland. “They are all fair game,” says Jinal Bhiman, a medical scientist at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in Johannesburg, South Africa. “Everyone has their favourite hypothesis.”
Craziest genome
Researchers agree that Omicron is a recent arrival. It was first detected in South Africa and Botswana in early November 2021 (see ‘Omicron takeover’); retrospective testing has since found earlier samples from individuals in England on 1 and 3 November, and in South Africa, Nigeria and the United States on 2 November. An analysis of the mutation rate in hundreds of sequenced genomes, and of how quickly the virus had spread through populations by December, dates its emergence to not long before that — around the end of September or early October last year2. In southern Africa, Omicron probably spread from the dense urban province of Gauteng, between Johannesburg and Pretoria, to other provinces and to neighbouring Botswana.
But because Johannesburg is home to the largest airport on the African continent, the variant could have emerged anywhere in the world — merely being picked up in South Africa because of the country’s sophisticated genetic surveillance, says Tulio de Oliveira, a bioinformatician at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban and at Stellenbosch University’s Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation, who has led South Africa’s efforts to track viral variants, including Omicron.
What stands out about Omicron is its remarkable number of mutations. Martin heard about it when he took a phone call from de Oliveira, who asked him to look at the craziest SARS-CoV-2 genome he had ever seen.
The variant has more than 50 mutations when compared with the original SARS-CoV-2 virus isolated in Wuhan, China (see go.nature.com/32utxva). Some 30 of these contribute to changes in amino acids in the spike protein1, which the coronavirus uses to attach to and fuse with cells. Previous variants of concern have had no more than ten such spike mutations. “That is a hell of a lot of changes,” says Neher (see ‘Most mutated’).
Researchers have seen many of these mutations before. Some were previously known to give the virus an increased ability to bind to the ACE2 receptor protein — which adorns host cells and is the docking point for SARS-CoV-2 — or to help it evade the body’s immune system. Omicron forms a stronger grip on ACE2 than do previously seen variants3. It is also better at evading the virus-blocking ‘neutralizing’ antibodies4 produced by people who have been vaccinated, or who have been infected with earlier variants. Other changes in the spike protein seem to have modified how Omicron enters cells: it appears to be less adept at fusing directly with the cell’s membrane, and instead tends to gain entry after being engulfed in an endosome (a lipid-surrounded bubble).
But more than a dozen of Omicron’s mutations are extremely rare: some have not been seen at all before, and others have popped up but disappeared again quickly, presumably because they gave the virus a disadvantage1.
Another curious feature of Omicron is that, from a genomic viewpoint, it consists of three distinct sublineages (called BA.1, BA.2 and BA.3) that all seem to have emerged at around the same time — two of which have taken off globally. That means Omicron had time to diversify before scientists noticed it. Any theory about its origins has to take this feature into account, as well as the number of mutations, notes Joel Wertheim, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of California, San Diego.
Silent spread
Researchers have explained the emergence of previous variants of concern through a simple process of gradual evolution. As SARS-CoV-2 replicates and transmits from person to person, random changes crop up in its RNA sequence, some of which persist. Scientists have observed that, in a given lineage, about one or two single-letter mutations a month make it into the general viral circulation — a mutation rate about half that of influenza. It is also possible for chunks of coronavirus genomes to shuffle and recombine wholesale, adds Kristian Andersen, an infectious-disease researcher at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. And viruses can evolve faster when there is selection pressure, he says, because mutations are more likely to stick around if they give the virus an increased ability to propagate under certain environmental conditions.
Some scientists think that person-to-person spread would not be conducive to accumulating as many changes as Omicron has since mid-2020. “It does seem like a year and a half is a really short period of time for that many mutations to emerge and to apparently be selected for,” says Rasmussen.
But Bhiman argues that enough time has elapsed. She thinks the mutation process could have occurred unseen, in a region of the world that has limited genomic sequencing and among people who don’t typically get tested, perhaps because they didn’t have symptoms. At some point in the past few months, she says, something happened to help Omicron explode, maybe because the progress of other variants — such as Delta — was gradually impeded by the immunity built up from vaccination and previous infection, whereas Omicron was able to evade this barrier.
Although researchers have submitted almost 7.5 million SARS-CoV-2 sequences to the GISAID genome database, hundreds of millions of viral genomes from people with COVID-19 worldwide have not been sequenced. South Africa, with some 28,000 genomes, has sequenced less than 1% of its known COVID-19 cases, and many nearby countries, from Tanzania to Zimbabwe and Mozambique, have submitted fewer than 1,000 sequences to GISAID (see ‘Missing genomes’).
Martin says that researchers need to sequence SARS-CoV-2 genomes from these countries to get a better sense of the likelihood of unobserved evolution. It is possible that the three sublineages of Omicron each separately arrived in South Africa from a region with limited sequencing capacity, he says.
But de Oliveira says the scenario that Omicron evolved unseen through person-to-person transmission is “extremely implausible”. Intermediate steps in Omicron’s evolution should have been picked up in viral genomes from people travelling from countries that do little sequencing to those that do a lot.
“This is not the nineteenth century, where you take six months to go from point to point by sailboat,” says Sergei Pond, a computational evolutionary biologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
And Andersen adds that, because some of Omicron’s mutations haven’t been seen before, the variant might have evolved in an environment not involving person-to-person chains of transmission. Some of the changes in Omicron don’t match any seen even in the broader viral group of sarbecoviruses, which includes the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). For example, one particular site on the genomes of all known sarbecoviruses encodes a serine amino acid, but a mutation in Omicron means the variant has a lysine at that position1, which changes the biochemistry of that region, Andersen says.
However, says Jesse Bloom, a viral evolutionary geneticist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, SARS-CoV-2 has not yet explored all of its possibilities in people. “The virus is still expanding in the evolutionary space.”
Chronic infection
An alternative incubator for fast-paced evolution is a person with a chronic infection. There, the virus can multiply for weeks or months, and different types of mutation can emerge to dodge the body’s immune system. Chronic infections give the virus “the opportunity to play cat and mouse with the immune system”, says Pond, who thinks it is a plausible hypothesis for Omicron’s emergence.
Such chronic infections have been observed in people with compromised immune systems who cannot easily get rid of SARS-CoV-2. For example, a December 2020 case report described a 45-year-old man with a persistent infection5. During almost five months in its host, SARS-CoV-2 accumulated close to a dozen amino-acid changes in its spike protein. Some researchers suggest Alpha emerged in someone with a chronic infection, because, like Omicron, it seems to have accumulated changes at an accelerated rate (see go.nature.com/3yj6kmh).
“The virus has to change to stick around,” says Ben Murrell, an interdisciplinary virologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The receptor-binding domain, where many of Omicron’s mutations are concentrated, is an easy target for antibodies, and probably comes under pressure to change in a long-term infection.
But none of the viruses from individuals with chronic infections studied so far has had the scale of mutations observed in Omicron. Achieving that would require high rates of viral replication for a long time, which would presumably make that person very unwell, says Rasmussen. “It seems like a lot of mutations for just one person.”
Further complicating the picture, Omicron’s properties could stem from combinations of mutations working together. For example, two mutations found in Omicron — N501Y together with Q498R — increase a variant’s ability to bind to the ACE2 protein by almost 20 times, according to cell studies. Preliminary research by Martin and his colleagues suggests that the dozen or so rare mutations in Omicron form three separate clusters, in which they seem to work together to compensate for the negative effects of any single one1.
If this is the case, it means that the virus would have to replicate sufficiently in a person’s body to explore the effects of combinations of mutations — which would take longer to achieve than if it were sampling the space of possible mutations one by one.
One possibility is that multiple individuals with chronic infections were involved, or that Omicron’s ancestor came from someone with a long-term infection and then spent some time in the general population before being detected. “There are a lot of open questions,” says Rasmussen.
Proving this theory is close to impossible, because researchers would need to be lucky enough to find the particular person or group that could have sparked Omicron’s emergence. Still, more comprehensive studies of SARS-CoV-2’s evolution in chronic infections would help to map out the range of possibilities, says Neher.
Mouse or rat
Omicron might not have emerged in a person at all. SARS-CoV-2 is a promiscuous virus: it has spread to a wild leopard, to hyenas and hippopotamuses at zoos, and into pet ferrets and hamsters. It has caused havoc in mink farms across Europe, and has infiltrated populations of white-tailed deer throughout North America. And Omicron might be able to enter a broader selection of animals. Cell-based studies have found that, unlike earlier variants, Omicron’s spike protein can bind to the ACE2 protein of turkeys, chickens and mice.
One study found that the N501Y–Q498R combination of mutations allows variants to bind tightly to rat ACE2 (ref. 6). And Robert Garry, a virologist at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, notes that several other mutations in Omicron have been seen in SARS-CoV-2 viruses adapting to rodents in laboratory experiments.
The types of single-nucleotide substitution observed in Omicron’s genome also seem to reflect those typically observed when coronaviruses evolve in mice, and do not match as well with the switches that are observed in coronaviruses adapting to people, according to a study of 45 mutations in Omicron8. The study noted that, in human hosts, G to U substitutions tend to occur in RNA viruses at a higher rate than C to A switches do, but that Omicron does not show this pattern.
It is possible, then, that SARS-CoV-2 could have acquired mutations that gave it access to rats — jumping from an ill person to a rat, possibly through contaminated sewage — and then spread and evolved into Omicron in that animal population. An infected rat could later have come into contact with a person, sparking the emergence of Omicron. The three sublineages of Omicron are sufficiently distinct that, according to this theory, each would represent a separate jump from animal to human.
A large population of animals with infections lasting longer than in humans could give SARS-CoV-2 room to explore a wide diversity of mutations and “build up a large ghost population of viruses that no one knows about”, says Martin, who says he finds this ‘reverse zoonosis’ theory convincing. Changes that make the virus better at spreading in its animal host won’t necessarily affect its ability to infect people, he says.
An animal reservoir could also explain why some of the mutations in Omicron have been rarely seen before in people, says Andersen.
In the dark
But others say that even a single viral jump from an animal to a person is a rare event — let alone three. Meanwhile, the virus has had plenty of opportunities to slip between people. And although some of Omicron’s mutations have been seen in rodents, that doesn’t mean they can’t happen or haven’t occurred in people, too, and have simply been missed.
Murrell also points out that SARS-CoV-2 didn’t immediately go through a period of accelerated evolution after jumping to people for the first time. When it spread to mink and deer, it did pick up changes, but not as many mutations as Omicron has accumulated, says Spyros Lytras, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Glasgow, UK. This means that the evidence isn’t sufficient to suggest Omicron’s predecessor would have undergone rapid selection after finding a new home in the wild.
To confirm this theory, researchers would need to find close relatives of Omicron in another animal, but they haven’t been looking — “something that has been horribly neglected”, says Martin. Since the pandemic began, researchers have sequenced fewer than 2,000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes isolated from other animals, mostly from mink, cats and deer.
Now that Omicron has taken off, how it evolves in people could offer more clues about its origins. It might, for instance, shed mutations that, in retrospect, are found to have helped it adapt to a different animal host, or in a person with a chronic infection. But it could also not change by much, leaving researchers in the dark.
The answer to Omicron’s emergence will probably be one or a combination of the three scenarios, says Bloom. But, he adds, researchers are far from explaining the processes that brought Omicron here, let alone predicting what the next variant will look like.
And many scientists say they might never find out where Omicron came from. “Omicron really shows us the need for humility in thinking about our ability to understand the processes that are shaping the evolution of viruses like SARS-CoV-2,” says Bloom.
Nature 602, 26-28 (2022)
*Omicron là chữ cái số 15 trong hệ ký tự Hy Lạp, gồm 2 chữ Oo được tổ chức y tế thế giới WHO đặt tên cho biến thể B1.1.529 virus Sars-cov-2 mới. nghe nói biến thể này lây gấp 500 lần biến thể Delta!!!
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