Omicron variant Updates: Scientists debate over need for COVID-specific vaccine

Meghalaya on Sunday reported 362 new COVID-19 cases, 42 more than the previous day, with the tally mounting to 90,884, a health official said. The death toll rose to 1,522 as four more patients succumbed to the disease, Health Services Director Dr Aman War said. East Khasi Hills district recorded the highest number of fresh cases at 149, followed by West Garo Hills at 133.

The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Sunday announced a seven-hour relaxation in the restriction on non-essential movement amid concerns raised by traders over the 64-hour long weekend Covid lockdown hampering their businesses. A fortnight ago, the administration had imposed complete a restriction on non-essential movement from Fridays 2 pm to Mondays 6 am to rein in the surge in COVID-19 cases.

Odisha recorded the highest daily coronavirus deaths in five months as 19 people, including two babies, succumbed to the infection on Sunday when it logged the lowest number of new cases in 20 days, the state health department said. A three-day-old boy in Bhadrak district and a 1-year-old girl in Ganjam died from the pathogen. Four out of the new fatalities were in Bhubaneswar, a bulletin by the health department said.

Telangana on Sunday recorded 2,484 new COVID-19 cases taking the tally to 7,61,050 while the death toll rose to 4,086 with one more fatality. Telangana had on Saturday reported 3,590 new COVID-19 cases.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) recorded the highest number of fresh cases with 1,045, followed by 138 in Medchal Malkajgiri and 130 in Ranga Reddy districts, a state government bulletin said, providing details as of 5.30 PM today.

Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday recorded 4,615 fresh coronavirus cases that took its infection tally to 4,32,875, while seven more fatalities pushed the death toll to 4,659, officials said. Of the fresh cases, 1,401 were from the Jammu division and 3,214 from the Kashmir division of the union territory, they said. Srinagar district recorded the highest number of fresh cases at 889, followed by 826 in Jammu district.

COVID-19 cases in Kerala continued to rise with the southern state reporting 51,570 new infections on Sunday taking the total number of affected people to 59,83,515. The state has reported 14 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours taking the death toll to 53,666, the state health department said. The state has tested 1,03,366 samples in the last 24 hours, a release issued by the health department said.

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) on Sunday expanded its COVID-19 vaccination programme to cover vulnerable children aged five to 11 years. Eligible children include those with diabetes, immunosuppression, learning disabilities, and other serious conditions that place them at a high risk from COVID-19.

Tamil Nadu Housing and Urban Development Minister S Muthusamy on Sunday tested positive for COVID-19 and has gone into quarantine at his camp office in Periyar Nagar here.

Muthusamy, the DMK MLA representing Erode West assembly constituency, regularly took part in all programmes conducted by the government apart from collecting grievance petitions to send to the district collector.

As India completed two years since the outbreak of COVID-19, vaccines and following COVID Appropriate Behaviour remain the most effective weapons against the deadly virus.

Though a number of drugs and other methods have been tried, no definitive treatment has emerged as yet. The country saw its first case of COVID-19 on January 30, 2020, when a third-year medical student from Wuhan University tested positive. She had returned home following semester holidays.

Five people were booked following a raid on 'Refill Republic Ahata' (byob) in sector-57 in Gurugram for allegedly organising a liquor party in violation of Covid-19 guidelines and serving liquor to 60-70 youngsters including girls, officials said on Sunday. Following inputs about the liquor party being organised in the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, a team of the chief minister flying wing led by DSP Inderjeet Yadav raided the spot, they said. The officials said a liquor party was underway at the place when the raid took place. Police said the illegal party was organised at 'Refill Republic Ahata' located in Sector-57 where around 60-70 youngsters including girls were participating with loud music. The Ahata owner is among those who were booked, they added. The officials said fines were imposed, and a detailed enquiry has been ordered.

According to new research, the COVID-19 pandemic had a wide range of impacts on maternity care. The study has been published in the 'The Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing'."Maternity care providers in Michigan experienced a range of complex challenges due to the pandemic, with many experiencing conflicts and questioning their role as a provider amid concerns of the effects of COVID-19 on themselves and their families," according to the qualitative research reported by Lisa Kane Low, PhD, CNM, and colleagues of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.In early February 2020, Dr Kane Low and colleagues were in the process of administering a survey to maternity care teams across the state of Michigan that take part in The Obstetrics Initiative (OBI), a data-driven quality improvement collaborative.The intent of the survey was to assess the influence maternity unit culture has on cesarean birth rates, but as the pandemic unfolded, the researchers wanted to additionally capture how a global health crisis might affect the maternity care landscape in Michigan. In mid-April 2020, they added a single, open-ended question: "How has COVID-19 impacted your work?"

With Covid-19 continuing to impact the global economy in its second year, the automotive semiconductor market will experience uneven shortages and tight supply amid labour shortfall, according to a new IDC report. The general theme for semiconductors in 2021 was shortages in mature process technology nodes. The IDC expects tight semiconductor supply to continue through the first half of 2022 as the industry builds up inventory to normal levels. The automotive market continues to be impacted as chips move upstream, limiting automobile manufacturing and driving original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to utilise their semiconductor supply for higher value vehicles, which raised the average selling price of vehicles for 2021. "Automotive semiconductors will continue to be a limiting constraint on the automotive market through the first half of 2022, but barring any unforeseen shutdowns or semiconductor manufacturing issues, supply should gradually improve through the second half of the year," said Nina Turner, research manager. Adding in the time to manufacture the vehicle, this means the "automotive market will begin to improve towards the end of 2022 and into 2023 if there are no other supply chain shocks," Turner added.

Odisha reported 19 more COVID-19 fatalities on Saturday, the highest in nearly five months, pushing the toll to 8,594, while the coronavirus tally mounted to 12,45,911 with 4,843 fresh cases, the health department said in a bulletin. Khurda district, where state capital Bhubaneswar is located, registered 1,023 new infections and five deaths. Odisha had logged 4,842 COVID-19 cases and 15 deaths on Saturday. The coastal state now has 53,090 active cases, and 11,84,174 patients have recovered from the disease so far, including 10,267 since Saturday, the bulletin said.

Puducherry registered a rise in the number of daily cases of coronavirus with as many as 923 people testing positive for the virus on Sunday. Puducherry and other three outlying regions of Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam together recorded the new cases, which were identified at the end of examination of 3,177 samples. With this, the overall caseload in the union territory reached 1,60,747. While Puducherry region alone accounted for 650 fresh cases out of the total 923 cases Karaikal reported 186, Yanam 72 and Mahe 15. The number of fresh cases logged on Saturday was 855.

One person died of coronavirus in Ladakh, while 227 fresh  cases pushed the overall virus tally in the Union Territory to 25,763, officials said on Sunday. The new death was reported from Leh district on Saturday, taking the overall death toll since the outbreak of the pandemic to 224, the officials said. They said a total of 1,144 people were tested for COVID-19 in the twin districts on Saturday and 227 of them returned positive. They included 134 in Leh and 93 in Kargil. The officials said 249 Coronavirus patients were discharged from hospitals in Leh and 11 others in Kargil, taking the number of cured patients in Ladakh to 24,278.

Amid the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, India has completed two years since the first coronavirus case was reported in the country and during this time, it has not just battled the virus but also its mutated variants, even as uncertainty continues to surround the expected course of the pandemic. It was on January 30, 2020 when a third-year medical student from Wuhan university tested positive for coronavirus, becoming the country's first COVID-19 patient, days after she had returned home following semester holidays. Since then, India has battled three waves of COVID-19 and its seven mutated variants, many of which turned out to be lethal. Till now, India has reported 4,10,92,522 cases and 4,94,091 fatalities due to COVID-19 and its variants. According to the Indian SARS-COV-2 Genomics Consortia INSACOG, there are seven variants of concern that have been identified in the last two years in India – Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.3, AY series and Omicron.

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The Taliban's acting Health Minister Qalandar Ebad has urged Afghans across the country to get vaccinated against Covid-19 as a collective effort to stop the further spread of the virus. In a video message on Saturday, Ebad said protecting oneself is one of the obligations of the Islam religion and that the vaccine is the most effective way to fight Covid-19, reports Khaama Press. "Fortunately, Afghanistan has imported millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines that are now available in centres across all 34 provinces," the acting Health Minister said. He said that although the Covid-19 situation is Afghanistan is not so serious presently, but people should remain vigilant and follow precationary measures as the pandemic is still prevalent. Earlier, the Ministry had said that they 21,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine were being administered across Afghanistan on a daily basis. According to figures by the World Health Organization, a total of 5,081,064 vaccine doses have been administered till date. Since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, Afghanistan has reported a total of 161,290 coronavirus cases and 7,405 deaths.

Andaman and Nicobar Islands recorded a dip in new COVID-19 cases as the union territory reported 53 new infections, 13 less than the previous day, pushing the tally to 9,743, a health department official said on Sunday. The archipelago now has 449 active COVID-19 cases while 9,165 people have recovered from the disease including 79 in the last 24 hours, the official said. The COVID-19 death toll remained at 129 as no fresh fatality was reported in the last 24 hours, he said. The union territory had reported 66 new COVID-19 cases and 95 recoveries on Saturday. The administration has so far tested 6,83,852 samples for COVID-19 and the cumulative test positivity rate is 1.42 per cent. A total of 6,03,987 beneficiaries have been inoculated with COVID-19 vaccine, of whom 3,04,248 have received the first dose and 2,99,739 have received both doses of the vaccine, the official added.

Austria has announced plans to relax Covid-19 restrictions in February despite high infection numbers in recent days. Starting from February 5, restaurants and shops across the country will be allowed to open until midnight with the lifting of the current 10 p.m. curfew, Chancellor Karl Nehammer told reporters on Saturday. From February 12, there will no longer be a testing or vaccine requirement in the retail sector; and starting February 19, people with a negative coronavirus test result but no proof of vaccination or recovery will again be able to visit restaurants and tourist attractions, reports Xinhua news agency. The move came amid a recent surge in infections in Austria driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant. On Saturday, the country reported nearly 35,000 new Covid-19 cases, according to the Austrian Press Agency. However, pressure on hospitals has eased as Omicron has led to less severe outcomes, and the current wave is expected to peak around February 7-9, Katharina Reich, director general for public health, told reporters. Nehammer also said that the situation of the hospitals is stable and at a predictable level.

More than 75% of the eligible population in the country is fully vaccinated: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya. 

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Malaysia reported 5,139 new COVID-19 infections as of midnight Saturday, bringing the national total to 2,861,069, according to the health ministry. There are 226 new imported cases, with 4,913 being local transmissions, data released on the ministry's website showed.

The number of Covid-19 infections has risen to 535,080 in Myanmar on Saturday, according to a release from the Ministry of Health. The release said 172 new confirmed cases were reported, with a daily positivity rate of 1.96 per cent, Xinhua news agency reported. According to the ministry's figures on Saturday, the total death toll stood at 19,310 as no daily deaths from Covid-19 were reported for six consecutive days. Another 201 patients have been discharged from hospitals, bringing the number of recoveries to 513,101 and over 6.33 million samples have been tested for Covid-19 as of Saturday. Myanmar detected its first two Covid-19 positive cases in March 2020.

Singapore reported 5,207 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 on Saturday. Of the new cases, 1,732 cases were detected through PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests and 3,475 through ART (antigen rapid test) tests, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the statistics released by the Ministry of Health. Among the PCR cases, 1,492 were local transmissions and 240 were imported cases. Among the ART cases with mild symptoms and assessed to be of low risk, there were 3,467 local transmissions and eight imported cases, respectively. A total of 656 cases are currently warded in hospitals, with 13 cases in intensive care units. One death was reported from Covid-19 on Saturday, bringing the total death toll to 854, the ministry said.

A total of 4,017,961 Covid-19 cases and 100,031 deaths were registered in Ukraine as of Saturday, while 3,615,257 patients have recovered, the country's health ministry reported. In the past 24 hours, 37,351 people tested positive for the virus and 7,163 patients recovered from the disease, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the ministry. Ukraine has been hit by a new outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The fatalities and hospitalisations caused by Covid-19 have been growing in the country in the last two weeks. According to the ministry, 15.3 million people have been vaccinated since the start of the vaccination campaign. Ukraine has recently started offering a third Covid-19 vaccine booster shot for those who received their second shot at least six months ago.

Several scientists have claimed that a Covid variant-specific vaccine is not needed, and that the existing shots are well effective against all variants, including Omicron. However, global vaccine makers have raced ahead to develop shots against the highly-mutated and transmissible Omicron variant. This week, both pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and biotechnology company Moderna announced that they have initiated clinical trials in which they are dosing people with Omicron-based vaccines. But according to public-health authorities and infectious-disease specialists, whether rolling out these jabs is necessary, or even practical, is unclear, Nature reported. According to some, an Omicron-specific jab may not be worthwhile because cases could plummet before the manufacturers could finalise the vaccines. Others point out that it's difficult to predict whether the next SARS-CoV-2 variant will be like Omicron, calling into question the utility of an Omicron-specific shot. "We have a lot of confidence in the [current] vaccines, but we must now discuss whether to update the composition," Kanta Subbarao, who chairs the Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 Vaccine Composition for the World Health Organization (WHO), was quoted as saying. Even if Pfizer is able to meet its ambitious goal -- just months from strain identification to clinical trial results -- it might still be too late to be useful, added Paul Bieniasz, a virologist at Rockefeller University in New York City. Omicron's dominance as a variant could be waning by then, Subbarao said. Such a vaccine might work against the variant that dominates after Omicron -- especially if the virus continues on that genetic trajectory. But no one knows how the virus will evolve, Bieniasz noted. Covid vaccine boosters are also proving useful against Omicron, but scientists say that endless boosting might not be a practical or sustainable strategy. Meanwhile, several scientists, including from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the global Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), are funding research for developing a pan-coronavirus vaccine, the report said. A pan-coronavirus vaccine can broadly protect against many strains of SARS-CoV-2 and other types of coronavirus. The World Health Organization is also working to devise a central system to update Covid vaccines, much like the current process used for flu jabs. The strategy emulates a system currently used to decide on "strain updates" for flu shots, which are updated every six months, The Telegraph reported.