Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil’s health regulator on Tuesday reported the discovery of two “preliminary” cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant in a traveler from South Africa, where it was first detected, and his wife. Positive samples from the two Brazilians will now be sent for further laboratory analysis for confirmation, the Anvisa regulator said in a statement. If confirmed, they would be the first Omicron cases in Latin America. The passenger arrived at the […]
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) — Dutch health authorities said Tuesday that the new Covid-19 variant was present in the Netherlands a week earlier than previously believed and checks are underway to see how far it has spread. The RIVM National Health and Environment Institute said it “has found the corona variant Omicron in two test samples that had already been taken in the Netherlands… on November 19 and 23”. The first cases in the […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Asian equity and oil traders were sent running Tuesday after the head of Moderna warned current coronavirus vaccines might be less effective at fending off the Omicron variant, fuelling fears that countries could be forced back into economically painful lockdowns. Stocks had mostly been edging up after a two-day sell-off that followed news Friday of the new variant, which some observers said was overdone as billions of people have […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Existing Covid-19 jabs will struggle against the Omicron variant and it will take months to develop a new shot that works, the head of US vaccine manufacturer Moderna has told the Financial Times. Stephane Bancel told the newspaper in an interview published Tuesday that data would be available on the effectiveness of current vaccines in the next two weeks but scientists were not optimistic. “All the scientists I’ve talked […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan on Tuesday confirmed its first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant, a day after authorities announced new Covid border restrictions. “Regarding the traveller arriving from Namibia, it was confirmed to be a case of Omicron after analysis at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases,” government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters. “This is the first Omicron case confirmed in Japan,” he said, adding that the infected traveller, a man in […]
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Pfizer has already started working on a version of its Covid-19 vaccine specifically targeting the new Omicron variant in case the current inoculation is not effective against the latest strain, the US drugmaker’s CEO Albert Bourla said Monday. Bourla told CNBC that his company on Friday began testing the current vaccine against the Omicron variant, which was first reported in South Africa and has reignited fears of a […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan will reinstate tough border measures, barring all new foreign arrivals over the Omicron Covid variant, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced Monday, just weeks after a softening of strict entry rules. “We will ban the (new) entry of foreigners from around the world starting from November 30th,” Kishida told reporters. Japan’s borders have been almost entirely shut to new overseas visitors for most of the pandemic, with even foreign residents at […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Health officials said Sunday they had detected the Covid Omicron strain in Australia for the first time in two passengers who were tested after flying into Sydney from southern Africa. The eastern state of New South Wales’ health authority said it had conducted urgent genomic testing and confirmed the new strain was present in the two people who landed in Sydney on Saturday. Both passengers came from southern Africa and arrived […]
SINGAPORE, Singapore (AFP) — Singapore and Malaysia eased coronavirus travel restrictions on one of the world’s busiest land borders Monday after nearly two years, allowing some vaccinated people to cross without quarantine. Before the pandemic, about 300,000 people used to commute across the border from Malaysia every day to the neighbouring city-state, to work in areas ranging from public transport to electronics manufacturing. But most travel was halted in March last year, leaving many who […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — While PCR tests can detect infection with Omicron, studies are looking to whether the Covid-19 variant of concern has any impact on other test types, the WHO said Sunday. “The widely-used PCR tests continue to detect infection, including infection with Omicron, as we have seen with other variants,” the World Health Organization said in an update on what is known so far about the new variant. “Studies are ongoing to determine […]
GABORONE, Botswana (AFP) –Botswana, the only African country outside South Africa to have reported Omicron cases, said Sunday it had detected 19 infections of the new Covid variant, including the first four declared last week. “As of today we have recorded a total of 19 cases of the variant,” Health Minister Edwin Dikoloti said at a press conference in the capital Gaborone. The southern African country had on Friday declared that the highly-mutated variant was […]
OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — Canada said Sunday it has detected its first cases of the new Omicron strain of Covid, in two people who had traveled recently to Nigeria. Both patients are in isolation while public health authorities trace their possible contacts, said federal and Ontario provincial officials. “I was informed today by the Public Health Agency of Canada that testing and monitoring of Covid-19 cases has confirmed two cases of the Omicron variant of […]
