Omicron may be less severe, but not ‘mild’: WHO

The more infectious Omicron variant of Covid-19 appears to produce less severe disease than the globally dominant Delta strain, but it should not be categorised as "mild", the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday.   

While Omicron has spread rapidly worldwide and triggered containment measures, rates of deaths and hospitalizations have been lower across the world. Numbers of new deaths have remained largely flat, likely due in part to vaccine availability.

Speaking at a media briefing, director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned against any complacency. He also repeated his call for greater global equity in the distribution of and access to coronavirus vaccines.

He warned that based on the current rate of vaccine rollout, 109 countries will miss the WHO's target for 70 percent of the world's population to be fully vaccinated by July. That aim is seen as helping end the acute phase of the pandemic.

Omicron surge, halted polls rallies in India, a day after authorities cancelled Grammys and Sundance.

 music awards and the renowned Sundance film festival.

Citing "uncertainty" surrounding the new coronavirus variant, the Recording Academy indefinitely postponed the music awards, while Sundance organizers said the festival would go virtual with infection numbers reaching new highs.

The heavily mutated Omicron variant, the most transmissible to date, accounted for around 95 percent of US cases in the week ending January 1.

According to the latest CDC figures cases stateside are running at nearly 500,000 a day, with new hospitalizations rising.

And in the UK, official data shows one in 15 people in England were infected with the virus in 2021's final week.

But Prime Minister Boris Johnson said travel curbs beefed up last month to contain the new strain were now ineffective, and his government scrapped the need for visitors to have pre-departure tests and quarantine on arrival until testing negative.

Italy's government, meanwhile, said it would make vaccination against Covid-19 compulsory from February 15 for everyone over the age of 50 -- nearly half of its population -- in its bid to battle surging infections.

The new decree obliges people over 50 who do not work to get vaccinated, and those who do work to obtain a vaccine pass -- which effectively covers all over-50s.

France on Wednesday set a record for new Covid cases over a 24-hour period, according to the latest official figures, with more than 332,000 additional infections recorded.

It was the first time that French cases breached 300,000, smashing the previous record established on Tuesday when 271,686 new Covid cases were recorded.

France's lower house of parliament yesterday finally passed in a first reading a bill further tightening its Covid measures, after three days of tense debates fuelled by President Emmanuel Macron's warning that he wanted to "piss off" the unvaccinated.

The Omicron outbreaks spiraling across Europe and the United States prompted Hong Kong to ban flights from eight nations as part of strict new virus curbs.

Meanwhile, election rallies were cancelled in India's heartland yesterday as authorities fret over a sudden Covid surge. India has seen confirmed infections nearly triple in two days.

With several cities imposing coronavirus curfews and health experts warning of exponential infection growth, several parties have brought their public campaigns to a halt in Uttar Pradesh-- the country's most populous state with over 200 million people.

India recorded more than 90,000 new infections overnight.

"There is no room for complacency," VK Paul, a doctor working with the government on its coronavirus response, told a press conference on Wednesday.

"Don't take it for granted... systems will be overwhelmed, your house will be overwhelmed."