Coronavirus Morning News Brief – Jan. 3: XBB 1.5 Could Drive New Surge, China Unhappy Over Travel Restrictions Placed on Its Citizens, and Today’s Statistics
Photo caption: A street scene in Brussels
Good morning. This is Jonathan Spira reporting. Here now the news of the pandemic from across the globe on the 998th day of the pandemic.
It’s quite possible that the omicron offshoot XBB 1.5 could drive a new surge in the United States. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the sublineage has more than doubled its share of cases every week for the past four, rising from 4% to 41% of new infections by the end of 2022.
The new sublineage is even more highly contagious than past variants and it seems to have a greater ability to evade immunity from prior infections as well.
Perhaps not surprisingly, China began to criticize what it termed unacceptable and politically motivated coronavirus pandemic-related travel restrictions that have been placed on its citizens by a number of countries in recent days.
China’s escalation in rhetoric comes ahead of a planned border reopening on Sunday.
Officials there are clearly hoping for a rapid recovery given the currently stalling domestic consumption rate, but all signs point to a rather sluggish economic rebound, if one could even call it that.
After abruptly ending its draconian “zero-Covid” policies several weeks ago without any guardrails in place, the pandemic has spun out of control and the country is becoming a Petri dish for new and perhaps more deadly variants and mutations of the coronavirus.
About a dozen major countries are requiring Chinese travelers to present a negative coronavirus test in order to either board a flight to or enter the country in question. One country, Morocco, has gone further and simply banned travelers from China altogether.
In other news we cover today, China is experiencing a massive surge in new infections and Belgium will test wastewater on aircraft arriving from China for possible new Covid subvariants.
UNITED STATES
An Indiana man received a double-lung transplant in South Florida after his lungs began to fail following a January 2020 coronavirus diagnosis. Doctors at the Miami Transplant Institute required six attempts to find a match for the patient. He recently returned to his home state after recovering from the eight-hour transplant procedure.
GLOBAL
China is being overwhelmed by a massive surge in new cases of SARS-CoV-2 and infections in rural areas have yet to peak. Chinese health authorities expect over 800 million people to become infected with Covid by spring. Bodies are piling up at crematoriums in China as the death toll increases dramatically amidst the spread of multiple subvariants of the omicron variant of the coronavirus. Chinese hospitals are overwhelmed and some are reportedly telling patients to bring their own beds to hospital.
China is finally joining the list of countries that use waste water monitoring as an early warning system for the coronavirus. This practice has been followed by some countries since the pandemic’s earliest days. The term “Sewage surveillance” – a technique underway in megacities such as Beijing and Shenzhen – is now providing useful information on the pandemic. As many as 130 sub-lineages of the omicron variant have been detected in the country in the past three months.
Meanwhile, Chinese factory activity contracted at the sharpest pace since the pandemic first emerged nearly three years ago, after Beijing’s abrupt reversal of counter-epidemic measures this month set off a wave of coronavirus infections across the country.
TRAVEL
Australia is mandating pre-flight coronavirus tests on passengers traveling from China. The country’s health minister, Mark Butler, said that the pre-flight checks were being imposed “out of an abundance of caution.”
Belgian health authorities will test wastewater on planes arriving from China for new coronavirus variants as part of new steps against the spread of the coronavirus as infections in China surge, the government announced on Monday.
South Korean health authorities said on Tuesday that the country will impose mandatory coronavirus testing on travelers from Hong Kong and Macau, in addition to those coming from mainland China.
TODAY’S STATISTICS
Now here are the daily statistics for Tuesday, January 3.
As of Tuesday morning, the world has recorded 665.7 million Covid-19 cases, an increase of 0.4 million cases, and 6.7 million deaths, according to Worldometer, a service that tracks such information. In addition, 637.8 million people worldwide have recovered from the virus, an increase of 0.6 million.
Worldwide, the number of active coronavirus cases as of Tuesday at press time is 21,269,087, a decrease of 274,000. Out of that figure, 99.8%, or 21,227,421, are considered mild, and 0.2%, or 41,666, are listed as critical. The percentage of cases considered critical has not changed over the past 24 hours.
The United States reported 10,893 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday for the previous day, compared to 4,000 on Monday, 5,522 on Sunday, 33,191 on Saturday, 115,787 on Friday, and 122,934 on Thursday, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The 7-day incidence rate is now 53,091. Figures for the weekend (reported the following day) are typically 30% to 60% of those posted on weekdays due to a lower number of tests being conducted.
The average daily number of new coronavirus cases in the United States over the past 14 days is 58,928, a decrease of 11% averaged over the past 14 days, based on data from the Department of Health and Human Services, among other sources. The average daily death toll over the same period is 317, a decrease of -23% over the same period, while the average number of hospitalizations for the period was 44,963, an increase of 8%. In addition, the number of patients in ICUs was 5,381, an increase of 11% and the test positivity rate continues to stand at 15%, a 23% increase.
In addition, since the start of the pandemic the United States has, as of Tuesday, recorded just under 102.7 million cases, a higher figure than any other country, and a death toll of over 1.1 million. India has the world’s second highest number of officially recorded cases, just under 44.7 million, and a reported death toll of 530,707.
The newest data from Russia’s Rosstat state statistics service showed that, at the end of July, the number of Covid or Covid-related deaths since the start of the pandemic there in April 2020 is now 823,623, giving the country the world’s second highest pandemic-related death toll, behind the United States. Rosstat reported that 3,284 people died from the coronavirus or related causes in July, down from 5,023 in June, 7,008 in May and 11,583 in April.
Meanwhile, France is the country with the third highest number of cases, with 39.3 million, and Germany is in the number four slot, with 37.4 million total cases.
Brazil, which has recorded the third highest number of deaths as a result of the virus, 694,032, has recorded 36.4 million cases, placing it in the number five slot.
The other five countries with total case figures over the 20 million mark are Japan, with just under 29.5 million cases, South Korea, with 29.2 million cases, placing it in the number seven slot, and Italy, with 25.1 million, as number eight, as well as the United Kingdom, with 24.1 million, and Russia, with just over 21.8 million.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, as of the past Thursday, 268.4 million people in the United States – or 80.8% – have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Of that population, 69%, or 229.9 million people, have received two doses of vaccine, and the total number of doses that have been dispensed in the United States is now 663.8 million. Breaking this down further, 91.8% of the population over the age of 18 – or 236.9 million people – has received at least a first inoculation and 78.7% of the same group – or 203.3 million people – is fully vaccinated. In addition, 17.3% of the same population, or over 44.7 million people, has already received an updated or bivalent booster dose of vaccine.
Starting on June 13, 2022, the CDC began to update vaccine data on a weekly basis and publish the updated information on Thursdays by 8 p.m. EDT, a statement on the agency’s website said.
Some 69.1% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine by Friday, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.18 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and 2.81 million doses are now administered each day.
Meanwhile, only 25.9% of people in low-income countries have received one dose, while in countries such as Canada, China, Denmark, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, at least 75% of the population has received at least one dose of vaccine.
Only a handful of the world’s poorest countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia and Nepal – have reached the 70% mark in vaccinations. Many countries, however, are under 20% and, in countries such as Haiti, Senegal, and Tanzania, for example, vaccination rates remain at or below 10%.
In addition, with the start of vaccinations in North Korea in late September, Eritrea remains the only country in the world that has not administered vaccines.
Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this story.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
