Hong Kong COVID-19 quarantine pushes Cathay pilots to 'breaking point' - CNA

As the pandemic spread, hammering global airlines, Cathay secured a bailout from Hong Kong's government. Many pilots kept their jobs but had to sign new contracts cutting their pay by as much as half.

Pilots fear Hong Kong's future as one of Asia's busiest transport hubs is now at risk.

Last month FedEx began relocating Hong Kong pilots to California because of the quarantine rules. British Airways also temporarily suspended flights after some crew were placed in government isolation.

"Once airlines move infrastructure like technicians, ground crew and pilots out of Hong Kong to places like Seoul and Bangkok, trust me, they're not coming back," one pilot said.

Hong Kong's Transport Department did not respond to a request for comment on whether the city's business reputation was at risk.

"We will review the quarantine arrangements for air crew as and when appropriate," a spokesperson said.

"NO ROADMAP"

In a recording obtained by AFP, Cathay's director of flight operations Chris Kempis told employees this week that there was "a higher resignation rate among pilots right now".

"There will be an increased draw, given the current environment in Hong Kong versus what is perceived overseas to be an opportunity for some," he said.

But he stressed the company still planned to make "an awful lot of recruitment" next year.

In a statement, Cathay Pacific said it had to abide by Hong Kong's regulations.

"We fully acknowledge that these rules and the length of time they have been in force are placing a burden on our aircrew, all of whom have been exemplary in their conduct and professionalism throughout this difficult period," the company said.

Any pilot who feels unfit to fly can decline to work "without jeopardy and is legally protected", the carrier added.

One pilot who flies commercial said he had been unable to see his family overseas for more than 20 months because of the quarantine restrictions and his need to stay flying to top up his depleted salary.

He said he felt Hong Kong's leaders have abandoned the idea of the city being an international hub at the request of "our overlords to the north" - a reference to Beijing.

"I love Hong Kong but if we're not going to plan our way out of this with a roadmap the question becomes what am I doing here?" he said.

"I can't take another year of this."

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2021-12-02 05:25:16Z
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Singapore close to vaccinating all eligible people against COVID-19 - Reuters

People wait at an observation area after their vaccination at a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination center in Singapore March 8, 2021. REUTERS/Edgar Su

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SINGAPORE, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Singapore's COVID-19 vaccination rate has risen to 96% of the eligible population and authorities are now racing ahead to administer booster shots amid concerns over the Omicron variant.

The health ministry of the city-state, which has among the highest vaccination rates in the world, said late on Tuesday that it had updated the official vaccination rate to account for a small drop in the population.

As of Nov. 29, 96% of the eligible population had completed the full vaccination regimen, updated from 94%, the ministry said. That translates to about 86% of the total population of about 5.5 million.

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About two months ago, 82% of the total population had been fully vaccinated against the virus.

Singapore had barred unvaccinated people from entering shopping malls from mid-October, and authorities have said they will further tighten rules from Jan. 1, including only allowing vaccinated individuals to enter workplaces.

The country has administered boosters to 26% of the population.

Singapore has not detected any cases of Omicron yet.

On Tuesday, it said that two travellers from Johannesburg who tested positive for the coronavirus variant in Sydney had transited through Changi airport. read more

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Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan and Chen Lin in Singapore; Editing by Himani Sarkar

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2021-12-01 02:23:00Z
1194896823

New 'Omicron' Variant Stokes Concern but Vaccines May Still Work - The New York Times

The Omicron variant carries worrisome mutations that may let it evade antibodies, scientists said. But it will take more research to know how it fares against vaccinated people.

Scientific experts at the World Health Organization warned on Friday that a new coronavirus variant discovered in southern Africa was a “variant of concern,” the most serious category the agency uses for such tracking.

The designation, announced after an emergency meeting of the health body, is reserved for dangerous variants that may spread quickly, cause severe disease or decrease the effectiveness of vaccines or treatments. The last coronavirus variant to receive this label was Delta, which took off this summer and now accounts for virtually all Covid cases in the United States.

The W.H.O. said the new version, named Omicron, carries a number of genetic mutations that may allow it to spread quickly, perhaps even among the vaccinated.

Independent scientists agreed that Omicron warranted urgent attention, but also pointed out that it would take more research to determine the extent of the threat. Although some variants of concern, like Delta, have lived up to initial worries, others have had a limited impact.

“Epidemiologists are trying to say, ‘Easy, tiger,’” said William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “This could be bad. This could be very bad. But we don’t know enough to roll that tape forward.”

Dr. Hanage and other researchers said that vaccines will most likely protect against Omicron, but further studies are needed to determine how much of the shots’ effectiveness may be reduced.

Tracking Omicron and Other Coronavirus Variants

See which countries have reported cases of the Omicron variant.

As the coronavirus replicates inside people, new mutations constantly arise. Most provide the virus with no new advantage. When worrisome mutations do emerge, the World Health Organization uses Greek letters to name the variants. The first “variant of concern,” Alpha, appeared in Britain in late 2020, soon followed by Beta in South Africa.

Omicron first came to light in Botswana, where researchers at the Botswana Harvard H.I.V. Reference Laboratory in Gaborone sequenced the genes of coronaviruses from positive test samples. They found some samples sharing about 50 mutations not found in such a combination before. So far, six people have tested positive for Omicron in Botswana, according to an international database of variants.

Around the same time, researchers in South Africa stumbled across Omicron in a cluster of cases in the province of Gauteng. As of Friday, they have listed 58 Omicron samples on the variant database. But at a news conference on Thursday, Tulio de Oliveira, the director of the Centre for Epidemic Response & Innovation in South Africa, said that “close to two or three hundred” genetic sequences of Omicron cases would be released in the next few days.

The W.H.O. called for increased surveillance of the variant and laboratory experiments to better understand its biology.

“This variant did surprise us,” Dr. de Oliveira said at the news conference. “But the full significance is still uncertain.”

Dr. de Oliveira and his colleagues asked the W.H.O. to hold an emergency meeting about the variant on Friday for two reasons: the mutations in Omicron and what appears to be an alarming spread in South Africa.

The researchers found more than 30 mutations on a protein, called spike, on the surface of the coronavirus. The spike protein is the chief target of antibodies that the immune system produces to fight a Covid-19 infection. So many mutations raised concerns that Omicron’s spike might be able to evade antibodies produced by either a previous infection or a vaccine.

Dr. de Oliveira and his colleagues determined a quick way to gauge how quickly Omicron was spreading in South Africa. Although sequencing the entire genome of a virus is slow, the scientists figured out how to identify Omicron with a standard nasal swab test known as P.C.R.

The tests are fast because they look for just two of the coronavirus’s 29 genes — the spike gene and another gene called nucleocapsid. Thanks to its new mutations, Omicron does not test positive for the spike gene. So researchers could simply look for samples that tested positive for nucleocapsid, but negative for spike.

It turned out that spike-negative samples were surging across South Africa, suggesting that Omicron had a competitive advantage over Delta, which until now had been the dominant variant in the country.

“It gives us concern that this variant may already be circulating quite widely in the country,” Richard Lessells, an infectious disease specialist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, said at Thursday’s news conference.

Dr. de Oliveira warned that South Africa, where less than one-quarter of the population is fully vaccinated, could see a surge of hospitalizations unless the country prevented Omicron from multiplying further in superspreading events. “We really would like to be wrong on some of these predictions,” he said.

Countries in Europe as well as the United States and Canada have been among those banning flights arriving from South Africa and several other African nations. But Omicron has already been spotted in Hong Kong and Belgium, and may well be in other countries outside of Africa as well.

Theodora Hatziioannou, a virologist at Rockefeller University in New York, said that Omicron’s distinctive mutations raise the possibility that it first evolved inside the body of someone with H.I.V., whose immune systems may have been too weak to quickly fight it off. “Your responses are just not as good,” Dr. Hatziioannou said.

Instead of getting cleared away in a matter of days, the virus may have lingered in that person for months, spending the time gaining the ability to evade antibodies. “This virus has seen a lot of antibodies,” Dr. Hatziioannou said.

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to Know

---

Card 1 of 4

The Omicron variant. The latest Covid-19 variant was identified on Nov. 25 by scientists in South Africa, though Dutch officials said two cases were detected in Europe days earlier. Meanwhile, U.S. officials said they are expanding their search for the variant. Should you be concerned? Here are answers to common questions about this variant.

Travel restrictions and lockdowns. As more Omicron cases emerge globally, countries are responding in varied ways. Japan joined Israel and Morocco in barring all foreign travelers, and Australia delayed reopening its borders for two weeks. Here’s a list of where U.S. citizens can travel right now and what to know about travel restrictions.

A new type of treatment. An expert panel voted to recommend that the F.D.A. authorize a Covid pill from Merck for high-risk adults, the first in a new class of antiviral drugs that could work against a wide range of variants, including Omicron. The pill could be authorized within days, and available by year’s end.

Economic impact. Stocks fell sharply on Tuesday, driven by the likelihood that the Federal Reserve will hasten the removal of its supports for the economy just as Omicron has begun to spread. Meanwhile, analysts expect the markets to face weeks of uncertainty and increased volatility amid the new variant’s arrival.

Dr. Hatziioannou and her colleagues have been able to produce mutant spike proteins in their laboratory that make viruses highly resistant to Covid-19 antibodies. She said that Omicron has many mutations in the same regions of the spike protein pinpointed in their own research. “The overlap is pretty striking,” she said.

That overlap has Dr. Hatziioannou concerned that Omicron will be able to evade some of the antibodies that people have acquired either from vaccines or from Covid-19 infections. Some monoclonal antibody treatments won’t work against Omicron either, she predicted, because the variant’s spike protein is protected from them.

Still, vaccines are expected to provide some protection against Omicron because they stimulate not only antibodies but immune cells that can attack infected cells, Dr. Hatziioannou said. Mutations to the spike protein do not blunt that immune-cell response.

And booster shots could potentially broaden the range of antibodies people make, enabling them to fight against new variants like Omicron. “We will see, because these studies are only now ongoing,” she said.

For now, there’s no evidence that Omicron causes more severe disease than previous variants. And it’s also not clear yet how quickly Omicron can spread from person to person.

Some earlier variants, such as Beta and Mu, had evolved a strong ability to evade immune defenses. But they never became a serious threat to the world because they proved to be poor at transmitting.

Some mutations in Omicron suggest that it may indeed transmit well. Three mutations alter a region of the spike protein called the furin cleavage site, which is already known to help the spike protein attach more effectively to cells.

But Dr. Hanage said he was not yet convinced by the South African data that Omicron was running rampant across the country. “I think it’s too early to be definitive,” he said.

He found it hard to see how a variant could sweep so quickly across South Africa, even while the overall rate of daily new infections in the country remains very low. He speculated that early tests might have been hampered by some technical flaw that could be uncovered in the next few days. “It feels to me like part of the puzzle is missing,” he said.

It might turn out that the apparent spread of Omicron was actually just a coincidence, as has been seen with some previous variants. If a new variant happens to get swept along during a surge of cases, it will look highly contagious when it isn’t.

Even so, Dr. Hanage considered a travel lockdown to be a prudent measure that could buy governments a little time to make plans for dealing with Omicron if it lives up to the worst predictions. Health leaders could use the delay to put in stronger measures for preventing transmission or boosting vaccinations, for example. “But just doing it and then thinking it’ll be enough is not a long-term plan,” he said.

Even if Omicron does prove more transmissible than other variants, Dr. Hanage said that vaccines would most likely remain vital weapons against it, both by slowing down its spread and making it more likely that people who do get sick only have mild Covid-19 instead of needing to go to the hospital.

Omicron is “certainly enough to take seriously, but it’s not apocalyptic,” Dr. Hanage said. “It’s not a magic virus. Magic viruses are not a thing.”

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2021-11-30 22:51:11Z
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New 'Omicron' Variant Stokes Concern but Vaccines May Still Work - The New York Times

The Omicron variant carries worrisome mutations that may let it evade antibodies, scientists said. But it will take more research to know how it fares against vaccinated people.

Scientific experts at the World Health Organization warned on Friday that a new coronavirus variant discovered in southern Africa was a “variant of concern,” the most serious category the agency uses for such tracking.

The designation, announced after an emergency meeting of the health body, is reserved for dangerous variants that may spread quickly, cause severe disease or decrease the effectiveness of vaccines or treatments. The last coronavirus variant to receive this label was Delta, which took off this summer and now accounts for virtually all Covid cases in the United States.

The W.H.O. said the new version, named Omicron, carries a number of genetic mutations that may allow it to spread quickly, perhaps even among the vaccinated.

Independent scientists agreed that Omicron warranted urgent attention, but also pointed out that it would take more research to determine the extent of the threat. Although some variants of concern, like Delta, have lived up to initial worries, others have had a limited impact.

“Epidemiologists are trying to say, ‘Easy, tiger,’” said William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “This could be bad. This could be very bad. But we don’t know enough to roll that tape forward.”

Dr. Hanage and other researchers said that vaccines will most likely protect against Omicron, but further studies are needed to determine how much of the shots’ effectiveness may be reduced.

Tracking Omicron and Other Coronavirus Variants

See which countries have reported cases of the Omicron variant.

As the coronavirus replicates inside people, new mutations constantly arise. Most provide the virus with no new advantage. When worrisome mutations do emerge, the World Health Organization uses Greek letters to name the variants. The first “variant of concern,” Alpha, appeared in Britain in late 2020, soon followed by Beta in South Africa.

Omicron first came to light in Botswana, where researchers at the Botswana Harvard H.I.V. Reference Laboratory in Gaborone sequenced the genes of coronaviruses from positive test samples. They found some samples sharing about 50 mutations not found in such a combination before. So far, six people have tested positive for Omicron in Botswana, according to an international database of variants.

Around the same time, researchers in South Africa stumbled across Omicron in a cluster of cases in the province of Gauteng. As of Friday, they have listed 58 Omicron samples on the variant database. But at a news conference on Thursday, Tulio de Oliveira, the director of the Centre for Epidemic Response & Innovation in South Africa, said that “close to two or three hundred” genetic sequences of Omicron cases would be released in the next few days.

The W.H.O. called for increased surveillance of the variant and laboratory experiments to better understand its biology.

“This variant did surprise us,” Dr. de Oliveira said at the news conference. “But the full significance is still uncertain.”

Dr. de Oliveira and his colleagues asked the W.H.O. to hold an emergency meeting about the variant on Friday for two reasons: the mutations in Omicron and what appears to be an alarming spread in South Africa.

The researchers found more than 30 mutations on a protein, called spike, on the surface of the coronavirus. The spike protein is the chief target of antibodies that the immune system produces to fight a Covid-19 infection. So many mutations raised concerns that Omicron’s spike might be able to evade antibodies produced by either a previous infection or a vaccine.

Dr. de Oliveira and his colleagues determined a quick way to gauge how quickly Omicron was spreading in South Africa. Although sequencing the entire genome of a virus is slow, the scientists figured out how to identify Omicron with a standard nasal swab test known as P.C.R.

The tests are fast because they look for just two of the coronavirus’s 29 genes — the spike gene and another gene called nucleocapsid. Thanks to its new mutations, Omicron does not test positive for the spike gene. So researchers could simply look for samples that tested positive for nucleocapsid, but negative for spike.

It turned out that spike-negative samples were surging across South Africa, suggesting that Omicron had a competitive advantage over Delta, which until now had been the dominant variant in the country.

“It gives us concern that this variant may already be circulating quite widely in the country,” Richard Lessells, an infectious disease specialist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, said at Thursday’s news conference.

Dr. de Oliveira warned that South Africa, where less than one-quarter of the population is fully vaccinated, could see a surge of hospitalizations unless the country prevented Omicron from multiplying further in superspreading events. “We really would like to be wrong on some of these predictions,” he said.

Countries in Europe as well as the United States and Canada have been among those banning flights arriving from South Africa and several other African nations. But Omicron has already been spotted in Hong Kong and Belgium, and may well be in other countries outside of Africa as well.

Theodora Hatziioannou, a virologist at Rockefeller University in New York, said that Omicron’s distinctive mutations raise the possibility that it first evolved inside the body of someone with H.I.V., whose immune systems may have been too weak to quickly fight it off. “Your responses are just not as good,” Dr. Hatziioannou said.

Instead of getting cleared away in a matter of days, the virus may have lingered in that person for months, spending the time gaining the ability to evade antibodies. “This virus has seen a lot of antibodies,” Dr. Hatziioannou said.

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Key Things to Know

---

Card 1 of 3

The Omicron variant. The latest variant was identified on Nov. 25 by scientists in South Africa, though Dutch officials said two cases were detected in the Netherlands days earlier. Should you be concerned? Here are answers to common questions about this variant.

Travel restrictions and lockdowns. As more Omicron cases emerge globally, countries are responding in varied ways. Japan joined Israel and Morocco in barring all foreign travelers, and Australia delayed reopening its borders for two weeks. Here’s a list of where U.S. citizens can travel right now and what to know about travel restrictions.

Economic impact. After a solid rally on Monday, global markets were sliding again on Tuesday amid new concerns over the ability of current vaccines to control the variant. Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, will tell lawmakers on Tuesday that Omicron creates more inflation uncertainty.

Dr. Hatziioannou and her colleagues have been able to produce mutant spike proteins in their laboratory that make viruses highly resistant to Covid-19 antibodies. She said that Omicron has many mutations in the same regions of the spike protein pinpointed in their own research. “The overlap is pretty striking,” she said.

That overlap has Dr. Hatziioannou concerned that Omicron will be able to evade some of the antibodies that people have acquired either from vaccines or from Covid-19 infections. Some monoclonal antibody treatments won’t work against Omicron either, she predicted, because the variant’s spike protein is protected from them.

Still, vaccines are expected to provide some protection against Omicron because they stimulate not only antibodies but immune cells that can attack infected cells, Dr. Hatziioannou said. Mutations to the spike protein do not blunt that immune-cell response.

And booster shots could potentially broaden the range of antibodies people make, enabling them to fight against new variants like Omicron. “We will see, because these studies are only now ongoing,” she said.

For now, there’s no evidence that Omicron causes more severe disease than previous variants. And it’s also not clear yet how quickly Omicron can spread from person to person.

Some earlier variants, such as Beta and Mu, had evolved a strong ability to evade immune defenses. But they never became a serious threat to the world because they proved to be poor at transmitting.

Some mutations in Omicron suggest that it may indeed transmit well. Three mutations alter a region of the spike protein called the furin cleavage site, which is already known to help the spike protein attach more effectively to cells.

But Dr. Hanage said he was not yet convinced by the South African data that Omicron was running rampant across the country. “I think it’s too early to be definitive,” he said.

He found it hard to see how a variant could sweep so quickly across South Africa, even while the overall rate of daily new infections in the country remains very low. He speculated that early tests might have been hampered by some technical flaw that could be uncovered in the next few days. “It feels to me like part of the puzzle is missing,” he said.

It might turn out that the apparent spread of Omicron was actually just a coincidence, as has been seen with some previous variants. If a new variant happens to get swept along during a surge of cases, it will look highly contagious when it isn’t.

Even so, Dr. Hanage considered a travel lockdown to be a prudent measure that could buy governments a little time to make plans for dealing with Omicron if it lives up to the worst predictions. Health leaders could use the delay to put in stronger measures for preventing transmission or boosting vaccinations, for example. “But just doing it and then thinking it’ll be enough is not a long-term plan,” he said.

Even if Omicron does prove more transmissible than other variants, Dr. Hanage said that vaccines would most likely remain vital weapons against it, both by slowing down its spread and making it more likely that people who do get sick only have mild Covid-19 instead of needing to go to the hospital.

Omicron is “certainly enough to take seriously, but it’s not apocalyptic,” Dr. Hanage said. “It’s not a magic virus. Magic viruses are not a thing.”

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2021-11-30 18:20:43Z
1191888452

Moderna CEO says vaccines likely less effective against Omicron, markets tumble - TODAY

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

1. Moderna CEO says vaccines likely less effective against Omicron, markets tumble  TODAY
2. Moderna boss says vaccines likely no match for Omicron  The Business Times
3. Update: China ready to deal with Omicron variant with technological reserve for vaccines: CDC official  Global Times
4. BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson explore Omicron versions of Covid-19 vaccines  The Straits Times
5. Moderna CEO sparks slump reiterating omicron may need new shots  The Edge Singapore
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2021-11-30 07:34:39Z
1157033015

Moderna CEO warns COVID-19 shots less effective against Omicron, markets tumble - CNA

HONG KONG: Drugmaker Moderna set off fresh alarm bells in financial markets on Tuesday (Nov 30) as the firm's chief warned that COVID-19 vaccines are unlikely to be as effective against the Omicron variant as they have been against the Delta version.

Crude oil futures shed more than a dollar, the Australian currency hit a year low, and Nikkei gave up its gains as Stephane Bancel's comments spurred fears that vaccine resistance could lead to more sickness and hospitalisations, prolonging the pandemic.

"There is no world, I think, where (the effectiveness) is the same level ... we had with Delta," Moderna CEO Bancel told the Financial Times in an interview.

"I think it's going to be a material drop. I just don't know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I've talked to ... are like 'this is not going to be good'," Bancel said.

Omicron - which the World Health Organization (WHO) said carries a "very high" risk of infection surges - has triggered global alarm, with border closures casting a shadow over a nascent economic recovery from a two-year pandemic.

News of its emergence wiped roughly US$2 trillion off the value of global stocks on Friday, although some calm was restored this week as investors waited for more data on the characteristics of Omicron.

Remarks by President Joe Biden that the United States would not reinstate lockdowns had also helped soothe markets before comments from the Moderna chief spooked investors.

Biden has called for wider vaccination, while the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged everyone aged 18 years and older to get a booster shot. Britain too has expanded its COVID-19 booster programme amid Omicron fears.

HONG KONG EXPANDS CURBS

Fear of the new variant has prompted countries around the world to move quickly to tighten border controls to prevent a recurrence of last year's strict lockdowns and steep economic downturns.

Hong Kong authorities have expanded a ban on entry for non-residents from several countries. It said non-residents from Angola, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia would not be allowed to enter as of Nov 30.

Additionally, non-residents who have been to Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Israel and Italy in the past 21 days would not be allowed to enter the city from Dec 2, it added.

The global financial hub, among the last places pursuing a zero-COVID strategy, has already banned non-residents arriving from South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

In Australia, five travellers tested positive for Omicron.

They are vaccinated and in quarantine, officials said, adding they are asymptomatic or display very mild symptoms.

Singapore's health ministry said two travellers from Johannesburg who tested positive for the variant in Sydney had transited through its Changi airport.

Australian authorities have also identified a sixth traveller who was most likely infected with the variant and had spent time in the community.

Canberra delayed on Monday the reopening of the nation's borders for international students and skilled migrants, less than 36 hours before they were due to be allowed back in.

"We're doing this out of an abundance of caution but our overwhelming view is that whilst (Omicron) is an emerging variant, it is a manageable variant," Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt told a media conference.

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2021-11-30 06:56:00Z
1195206444

Cryptocurrency Omicron in frenzy over Covid-19 variant - The Business Times

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

1. Cryptocurrency Omicron in frenzy over Covid-19 variant  The Business Times
2. Omicron hits markets; Japanese novel released as NFT  Forkast News
3. Omicron (OMC) Cryptocurrency Spikes 716% After WHO’s Name Choice for the Latest COVID-19 Strain  CryptoPotato
4. Omicron Crypto Surges as Covid-19 Variant Spreads Too  Bloomberg
5. Wen moon? Data shows pro traders becoming more bullish on Bitcoin price  Cointelegraph
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