(Bloomberg) — Singapore infections increased at the fastest pace in nearly two months amid the worldwide spread of the omicron variant. A U.S. agency said travel to the Southeast Asian nation should be avoided.
Officials in Hong Kong have disclosed the first preliminary positive case of Covid-19 from an unknown source in almost three months. The city has banned more flight routes. Fewer U.S. patients are ending up in intensive-care units than last winter.
The language around what constitutes fully vaccinated is being replaced, according to Anthony Fauci, as omicron makes boosters necessary for optimal protection. Omicron now accounts for 95% of new sequenced cases in the U.S.
Nine in 10 Indonesians have antibodies and Thailand’s cases are surging.
Key Developments:
- Virus Tracker: Cases pass 294 million; deaths exceed 5.4 million
- Vaccine Tracker: More than 9 billion shots administered
- U.S. schools close in droves as omicron drives staff shortages
- Frustrated test-seekers are overwhelming emergency rooms
- How safe is flying as omicron surges: QuickTake
Nine in 10 Indonesians Have Antibodies (10:23 a.m. HK)
Almost nine in 10 Indonesians have developed antibodies against Covid-19, a survey showed, even as the country lagged behind its Asian neighbors in vaccination rates.
About 86.6% in the survey tested positive for SARS-CoV2 antibodies, said Wiku Adisasmito, spokesman for the Covid-19 task force. Some 73.2% of those with the antibodies had never been vaccinated and had no confirmed history of coronavirus infections, he said in the statement. The survey was held in 100 cities across the nation in November and December.
Thailand Cases Rise (10:15 a.m. HK)
Thailand reported 3,899 new Covid cases on Wednesday, the highest number since Dec. 11, as the country braces for an omicron-driven surge. The Southeast Asian nation is expected to see an increase in new infections following a peak travel period during the New Year holiday.
The government has already ordered state employees to work from home for two weeks to reduce the risks of infections, while schools have been advised to hold classes online as necessary.
Although the delta variant still accounts for about 70%-80% of infections in Thailand, more omicron cases have been detected in recent weeks. The virus task force is expected to extend the suspension of its quarantine-free entry on Friday.
Hong Kong Bans Five More Flight Routes (9:53 a.m. HK)
Embattled flag carrier Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., as well as Air India Ltd., Air Canada, Thai Airways International Pcl and Philippines AirAsia have had routes suspended from Jan. 4 to Jan. 17, the government said. That’s the most flights Hong Kong has banned in a day since omicron emerged in November.
Hong Kong is rushing to plug holes that have seen the highly infectious omicron variant finally break through the city’s defenses, banning five more individual airline routes — including those from Seoul, Vancouver and Delhi — after discovering infected passengers.
Singapore Infection Rate Jumps (9:45 a.m. HK)
Singapore’s week-on-week infection growth rate, a measure tracking the spread of Covid-19 in the community, rose above 1 for the first time in almost two months as omicron variant cases in the city-state increased.
The rate increased to 1.09 from 0.95 the previous day, the Ministry of Health said late Tuesday on its website. The measure reached 1.04 on Nov. 12 and had fallen to a low of 0.52 on Dec. 24 before climbing again.
H.K. First Case From Unknown Source in Months (8:36 a.m. HK)
Officials in Hong Kong have disclosed the first preliminary positive case of Covid-19 from an unknown source in almost three months, a worrying sign as the city works to contain an omicron cluster.
The city’s health department suspects that the patient, an unvaccinated worker in the North Point area of the city, carries the omicron variant, although whole genome sequencing still needs to be conducted to confirm if that’s the case, according to a government statement on Tuesday.
The news raises the possibility that coronavirus may be spreading in the increasingly isolated Asian financial hub via routes of transmission that local health officials haven’t been able to trace.
New Vaccine Language (7:45 a.m. HK)
The language around what constitutes fully vaccinated against Covid-19 is being replaced, in the strongest indication by White House chief medical adviser Anthony S. Fauci that two shots of a messenger RNA vaccine fall short of protection amid the highly transmissible omicron variant.
“We’re using the terminology now ‘keeping your vaccinations up to date,’ rather than what ‘fully vaccinated’ means,” Fauci said during a National Institutes of Health lecture Tuesday. “Right now, optimal protection is with a third shot of an mRNA or a second shot of a J&J.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called Tuesday for third shots of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine to be administered within five months of the initial two-shot series, shortening the time frame before a booster by a month. A CDC advisory panel is expected to recommend boosters for teenagers in a meeting Wednesday.
NYC Economic Recovery to Lag Until 2025 (7:42 a.m. HK)
New York City Mayor Eric Adams faces a longer-than-expected Covid recovery with a nearly $3 billion budget gap next year and a labor force that isn’t expected to reach pre-pandemic levels until 2025, the city’s Independent Budget Office said in its latest economic forecast released Tuesday.
Rising tax revenue could mitigate some of the pain but Adams will be forced to make tough choices over balancing the budget without the billions of federal aid that has masked much of the city’s underlying fiscal uncertainty, the IBO said.
Quarantine Breaches in the Philippines (7:30 a.m. HK)
Philippine authorities charged nine people for allegedly violating the health emergency law, and are investigating another case of a returning citizen who skipped quarantine amid rising Covid-19 infections.
The Philippines tightened virus curbs in its capital this week amid an exponential rise in Covid-19 infections, possibly due to the omicron variant. The Southeast Asian nation recorded 5,434 cases on Tuesday, the highest since late October.
Texas Sues U.S. Over National Guard Shot Rule (6:05 a.m. HK)
Texas Governor Greg Abbott sued the Biden administration over its effort to impose a coronavirus vaccine mandate on National Guard troops, saying it violates state sovereignty to require the shots when the troops are not on active federal duty.
Under U.S. law, National Guard units answer to the states where they are domiciled unless they are called into active duty by the federal government. Abbott’s lawsuit also cites Texas’s state constitution, saying its governor serves as the national guard’s commander-in-chief except when the troops are called into federal service.
The dispute between Texas and the U.S. has been brewing since at least last month, when Abbott said he wouldn’t enforce the vaccine mandate on National Guard soldiers and then said he would sue to block it.
CDC Says Singapore’s Covid Levels ‘Unknown’ (3:35 p.m. NY)
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reclassified its Covid-19 travel advisory for Singapore, guiding Americans to avoid travel to the Southeast Asian nation because the level of the disease there is “unknown.”
“Because the current situation in Singapore is unknown, even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants,” the CDC said in its advisory.
Singapore, which was previously classified under the CDC’s highest Covid-19 risk level, now joins the same classification category as Afghanistan, North Korea and Syria.
The city-state reported a total of 842 new Covid-19 cases as of noon on Jan. 4.
AmEx Delays U.S. Office Return (3 p.m. NY)
American Express Co. postponed its return to U.S. offices amid a surge in Covid-19 cases linked to the highly contagious omicron variant.
The New York-based credit-card giant will give employees two weeks’ notice before it starts bringing a larger number of staffers back to its offices. The firm had previously said it intended to start bringing back employees beginning Jan. 24.
Omicron Now 95% of New U.S. Cases (2:17 p.m. NY)
Omicron made up 95% of all sequenced Covid-19 cases in the U.S. in the week ending Jan. 1, up from a revised 77% in the previous week, according to a model by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Previously, the CDC estimated that the variant accounted for 58.6% of cases in the week ending Dec. 25.
The omicron variant is accounting for the lion’s share of new coronavirus cases as Americans return to work and school following the holiday season, according to estimates from federal health officials.
U.S. hospitals are so far seeing significantly fewer severe outcomes from the omicron wave than they saw in past Covid-19 spikes, mirroring the experience of South Africa and the U.K. Even New York, the uber-dense site of one of the nation’s worst outbreaks, is seeing similar results.
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