Live updates: follow the latest news on Covid-19 variant Omicron
Omicron, the new strain of the coronavirus, may elude the current generation of Covid-19 vaccines, Moderna's chief medical officer has said.
Paul Burton said scientists should know more about the ability of vaccines to provide protection in the next couple of weeks.
"These mutations – at least 30 of them in the spike protein alone, nine of them known to be associated with immune escape, and another 11 are predicted to be associated with immune escape," Mr Burton told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.
"You bring those together [and] I think this is a very concerning virus."
He said the mRNA vaccine platform can be altered “very fast” to respond to new strains.
"If we have to make a brand new vaccine, I think that's going to be early 2022 before that's really going to be available in large quantities."
Pfizer-BioNTech expects lab data within two weeks on the efficacy of its Covid-19 vaccine against the strain and can adapt it within 60 days. The company said it can ship the first batches out within 100 days in the event of an “escape variant”.
Experts have, however, said protection against severe disease and death is expected to hold up, even if vaccines lose some efficiency against the strain.
A researcher for Moderna, who tweets under the name Chise, wrote that there was “NO plausible scenario this will take us back to square one”.
“These vaccines are polyclonal, there are non-neutralising antibodies, and T-cells. Will the vaccines take a hit? Likely, as they do with ALL variants. Will it completely render these useless? Absolutely not," she tweeted.
Omicron was designated a variant of concern on Friday by the World Health Organisation, which said preliminary evidence suggests the strain carries an increased risk of reinfection.
It has rapidly overtaken Delta to become the dominant variant in Gauteng, a province of South Africa, which accounts for the vast majority of cases in the country.
A doctor who raised the alarm about the new variant in the province said on Saturday that healthy patients were developing “unusual but mild symptoms” such as “feeling so tired", a “very high pulse rate” and fever.
“Their symptoms were so different and so mild from those I had treated before,” Dr Angelique Coetzee, a GP who chairs the South African Medical Association, told The Telegraph.
She said her patients were young and healthy and the new variant could still hit older people, or those with underlying health conditions harder.
Epidemiologists have urged caution in interpreting early reports.
Richard Lessells, an infectious diseases physician at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, pointed out the resurgence of cases in Gauteng was very recent and from a low base, with very rapid increases in test positivity rates.
“Most of the early spread was among younger people, with outbreaks in universities likely being amplification events,” he tweeted.
“We would only expect to see the time lag for infections to progress to severe disease and impact on hospitalisations in the next few weeks.”
Doctors have warned they are already seeing an upswing in moderate to severe cases among the young, who are either not at all or only partially vaccinated.
“We’re seeing a marked change in the demographic profile of patients with Covid-19,” Rudo Mathivha, the head of the intensive care unit at Soweto’s Baragwanath Hospital, told an online press briefing.
She said people in their 20s to their late 30s were “coming in with moderate to severe disease, some needing intensive care”.
“About 65 per cent are not vaccinated and most of the rest are only half-vaccinated,” she said.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Jetour T1 specs
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GOLF’S RAHMBO
- 5 wins in 22 months as pro
- Three wins in past 10 starts
- 45 pro starts worldwide: 5 wins, 17 top 5s
- Ranked 551th in world on debut, now No 4 (was No 2 earlier this year)
- 5th player in last 30 years to win 3 European Tour and 2 PGA Tour titles before age 24 (Woods, Garcia, McIlroy, Spieth)
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
Evacuations to France hit by controversy
- Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
- Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
- The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
- Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
- It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
- Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
- Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
More on Quran memorisation:
FULL%20FIGHT%20CARD
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ETFs explained
Exhchange traded funds are bought and sold like shares, but operate as index-tracking funds, passively following their chosen indices, such as the S&P 500, FTSE 100 and the FTSE All World, plus a vast range of smaller exchanges and commodities, such as gold, silver, copper sugar, coffee and oil.
ETFs have zero upfront fees and annual charges as low as 0.07 per cent a year, which means you get to keep more of your returns, as actively managed funds can charge as much as 1.5 per cent a year.
There are thousands to choose from, with the five biggest providers BlackRock’s iShares range, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs, Deutsche Bank AWM X-trackers and Invesco PowerShares.
BMW M5 specs
Engine: 4.4-litre twin-turbo V-8 petrol enging with additional electric motor
Power: 727hp
Torque: 1,000Nm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 10.6L/100km
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Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
Company%20Profile
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MATCH INFO
Newcastle United 3
Gayle (23'), Perez (59', 63')
Chelsea 0
Our Time Has Come
Alyssa Ayres, Oxford University Press
