Covid-19

Early data indicates the Omicron Covid variant may more easily reinfect people who have already had the virus or been vaccinated than previous variants, but could also cause milder disease, the WHO said Wednesday.

"Emerging data from South Africa suggests increased risk of reinfection with Omicron," World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters, adding that "there is also some evidence that Omicron causes milder disease than Delta".

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana is one of at least two Democrats who are expected to join every Senate Republican in a vote Wednesday night opposing President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate on private employers.

BioNTech and Pfizer said on Wednesday a three-shot course of their COVID-19 vaccine was able to neutralise the new Omicron variant in a laboratory test and they could deliver an Omicron-based vaccine in March 2022 if needed.

In the first official statement from vaccine manufacturers on the likely efficacy of their shot against Omicron, BioNTech and Pfizer said that two vaccine doses resulted in significantly lower neutralising antibodies but that a third dose of their vaccine increased the neutralising antibodies by a factor of 25.

Top US scientist Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that while it would take weeks to judge the severity of the new Covid-19 variant Omicron, early indications suggested it was not worse than prior strains, and possibly milder.

Speaking to AFP, President Joe Biden's chief medical advisor broke down the knowns and unknowns about Omicron into three major areas: transmissibility, how well it evades immunity from prior infection and vaccines, and severity of illness.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Monday rejected the idea of having the federal government mail free Covid-19 tests to households across the United States, a solution that has long been part of other nations' efforts to combat the pandemic.

During a press briefing, a reporter asked Psaki why the U.S. continues to lag behind the United Kingdom, Germany, South Korea, and other countries in making rapid Covid-19 tests easily affordable and accessible to all who want or need one—an objective that has gained importance amid fears of another winter surge fueled by the Omicron variant, which has been detected in at least 15 U.S. states.

Some male anti-vaccination activists believe that their sperm will soon make them an absolute fortune, Vice News reports.

As Vice explains, anti-vaxxers falsely believe that COVID-19 vaccines will lead to widespread infertility among men who get inoculated against the virus -- and that this will leave those who have remained unvaccinated as the only humans left capable of reproduction.

Although COVID-19 has killed more than 5.2 million people worldwide — according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore — Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio continues to downplay the pandemic’s severity and claim that “real America” needn’t worry about the pandemic. But CNN’s Phil Mattingly, slamming Jordan in a biting commentary, stressed that what Jordan considers “real America” is seeing the United States’ worst COVID-19 infection rates.

On December 2, Jordan tweeted, “Real America is done with #COVID19. The only people who don’t understand that are Fauci and Biden.” By “real America,” the far-right MAGA Republican obviously means red states — and those states, Mattingly stressed, are suffering the most from COVID-19.

In the first week that the Omicron variant sparked global fears of a new wave of infections, a small handful of investors and executives with Pfizer and Moderna—currently the world's preeminent makers of Covid-19 vaccines—saw over $10 billion in new wealth, with the Moderna's CEO alone adding over $800 million to his personal fortune.

Based on data compiled by Global Justice Now and released Saturday, "just 8 top Pfizer and Moderna shareholders" added a combined $10.31 billion to their fortunes last week after stock prices soared in response to the emergence of Omicron. According to a statement by the group:

The lead developer of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine warned the next pandemic could be "more lethal", urging better preparedness in a speech set to be aired Monday.

Sarah Gilbert, who is credited with saving millions of lives through her role in designing the jab, said the world must build on key lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic.

People who live in counties that voted heavily for then-President Donald Trump are more likely to die of Covid-19 than people who live in counties that voted heavily for President Joe Biden, according to a new report.

A review of Covid-19 data by NPR found that people "living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.7 times the death rates of those that went for Biden." Data examined by NPR included information collected since May in around 3,000 counties. Previous reports have found similar results.