It is barely more than a year since scientists in southern Africa first detected the coronavirus Omicron variant, which, along with its myriad sub-variants, went on to become dominant around the world.
Omicron spreads more easily than earlier variants, but causes less severe illness and fewer deaths in general, statistics have shown.
However, a surge in cases may lead to increases in admissions to hospital and deaths. Omicron caused Covid-19 infection and death rates to soar in many nations.
But, 12 months on, the latest figures from the World Health Organisation indicate that the disease is causing a little more than 8,000 deaths a week worldwide — the lowest figure since March 2020, when the pandemic was declared by the WHO.
In 2021, there was no single week when fewer than 40,000 Covid-19 deaths were recorded.
While much of the world is seeing more variability after the initial Omicron-induced surge faded in the early months of this year, case numbers and deaths have remained much lower.
Major nations as diverse as Brazil, France, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa and the US all appear to have put the worst of the pandemic behind them, even if in some instances Covid-19 deaths are still running in the hundreds — or low thousands in the case of the US — per week.
Life has largely returned to its pre-pandemic state, with high vaccination rates, natural immunity from previous infection and Omicron’s reduced pathogenicity causing Covid-19 to merge into the background of other respiratory infections.
This has allowed travel restrictions to be lifted and caused a reduction in requirements for mask-wearing, testing and self-isolation.
People 'dying with Covid, not from Covid'
It is now "a rarity" for Covid-19 to cause someone to be admitted to hospital in the UK, says Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading in the country, "and a particular rarity if someone dies of it". The pneumonia that caused so many deaths, especially early in the pandemic, is much less common than it was.
"It’s more a case of them dying with Covid than from Covid," he says. "For sick people, whichever respiratory virus was doing the rounds would be what [killed them] in the end."
Sub-variants of Omicron now account for the overwhelming majority of Covid-19 infections globally. Many non-Omicron variants or sub-variants are detected at extremely low levels or are no longer seen at all.
Tests have shown that Omicron replicates faster than some earlier forms of the virus in the bronchus — the tubes that run from the windpipe to the lungs — which helps explain why it spreads easily.
But it replicates much slower than other variants in the lungs, a key factor in why it typically causes less severe disease.
"It’s attenuated and it’s done it very quickly," Prof Jones says of the coronavirus. "It’s now an upper respiratory infection almost exclusively, which is why it transmits better. It’s just much better at getting around.
"The damage originally was getting pneumonia and ground-glass [x-rays of the lung]. That’s gone because it doesn’t seem to go into the lower parts of the respiratory system."
Nevertheless, this week Anthony Fauci, the departing director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the US and the chief medical advisor to the US president, urged people in his country to have a Covid-19 booster vaccination.
The messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have been updated to take account of Omicron, so offer greater protection now than the original forms of these vaccines.
The effects of long Covid
Countries that previously experienced high infection rates have been left with a debilitating legacy of long Covid, typically defined as symptoms that linger for more than a month.
Aside from huge death rates in the US — where more than a million people died from Covid — data from the US Census Bureau collected in June and analysed by the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington DC indicates that about 16 million working-age Americans have long Covid, of whom between two and four million are not working as a result.
And a study published this month by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, using data from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, found that the risk of long Covid and other serious complications rises after a first infection.
The results indicate, the researchers said, that vaccinated people who have previously had Covid should still take precautions to prevent getting infected again. Other experts have suggested that risks plateau as the number of infections an individual has had increase.
Prof Jones says that for people who have already received multiple vaccine doses, "there probably isn’t much need" to get an additional shot. This may change, however.
"It all depends on whether you get lifetime immunity from using the current vaccine," he says. "The problem for Covid in particular is that coronaviruses seem to evade immunity and in particular with mRNA vaccines, we don’t know how long immunity will last, because they haven’t been round long enough."
Where is Covid getting worse?
In a continuation of the widely divergent national pictures that have characterised the pandemic from the beginning, several countries, such as Australia, China and Japan, that missed out on the worst effects of the coronavirus in the first two years, saw the situation become much more serious in 2022.
Sometimes this was because the ease at which Omicron and its subvariants such as BA.5 spread made it much harder to suppress case numbers and these newer variants often evaded immunity from prior infection or vaccination.
Australia had recorded about 2,250 deaths by the end of 2021, but when late that year the country moved away from a zero-Covid strategy, which involves trying to eliminate rather than live with the coronavirus, case numbers rocketed and the death toll rose to above 15,000.
Japan's case numbers also surged in 2022, in part because of BA.5, and more than 60 per cent of its Covid-19 deaths have happened this year.
China, in attempting to retain a zero-Covid policy, is now something of an outlier nearly three years on from the pathogen’s emergence in Wuhan.
Disruptive efforts to prevent the spread of the virus remain in place and society appears a long way away from living with the virus.
Cracks in the approach spearheaded by President Xi Jinping's government are growing, with the country experiencing a record number of daily cases on Wednesday, at 31,527.
The country’s population remains more vulnerable to Covid because of a lower level of natural immunity, poor vaccination rates — a particular problem among elderly people — and limited efficacy of the domestically developed vaccines.
One concern is that high levels of infection could cause significant spikes in deaths among the elderly on the mainland, just as they did in Hong Kong care homes earlier this year, where vaccination rates among the elderly were also low.
"My concerns remain around China. It’s got a large population that’s susceptible because they don’t use the mRNA vaccines," says Dr Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer and senior consultant in communicable disease control at the University of Exeter in the UK.
"In a large population, such as China’s … the immunity produced [by their vaccines] is not as long-lasting. Where the modern mRNA vaccines have been deployed, these countries are in a better position."
China's zero-Covid policy has kept the official death toll from the coronavirus on the mainland to 5,232, a tiny figure for a country of 1.4 billion people.
This number is thought by many analysts to massively underestimate the true figure, but the country’s efforts to suppress infections mean that total deaths — and the numbers suffering from long-Covid — are probably much lower than they would otherwise have been.
But in keeping more of its people alive, China has caused its economy to take a hit and prevented life from returning to normal. A year on from the emergence of Omicron, the pandemic remains front and centre in the world's most populous nation.
World leaders who have had Covid — in pictures
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The%20specs
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THE%20SPECS
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Company%20profile
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Results
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The Details
Article 15
Produced by: Carnival Cinemas, Zee Studios
Directed by: Anubhav Sinha
Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Kumud Mishra, Manoj Pahwa, Sayani Gupta, Zeeshan Ayyub
Our rating: 4/5
Sun jukebox
Rufus Thomas, Bear Cat (The Answer to Hound Dog) (1953)
This rip-off of Leiber/Stoller’s early rock stomper brought a lawsuit against Phillips and necessitated Presley’s premature sale to RCA.
Elvis Presley, Mystery Train (1955)
The B-side of Presley’s final single for Sun bops with a drummer-less groove.
Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, Folsom Prison Blues (1955)
Originally recorded for Sun, Cash’s signature tune was performed for inmates of the titular prison 13 years later.
Carl Perkins, Blue Suede Shoes (1956)
Within a month of Sun’s February release Elvis had his version out on RCA.
Roy Orbison, Ooby Dooby (1956)
An essential piece of irreverent juvenilia from Orbison.
Jerry Lee Lewis, Great Balls of Fire (1957)
Lee’s trademark anthem is one of the era’s best-remembered – and best-selling – songs.
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
more from Janine di Giovanni
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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United States
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China
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UAE
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Japan
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5
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Norway
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Canada
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Singapore
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Australia
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Saudi Arabia
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South Korea
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
if you go
Getting there
Etihad (Etihad.com), Emirates (emirates.com) and Air France (www.airfrance.com) fly to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, from Abu Dhabi and Dubai respectively. Return flights cost from around Dh3,785. It takes about 40 minutes to get from Paris to Compiègne by train, with return tickets costing €19. The Glade of the Armistice is 6.6km east of the railway station.
Staying there
On a handsome, tree-lined street near the Chateau’s park, La Parenthèse du Rond Royal (laparenthesedurondroyal.com) offers spacious b&b accommodation with thoughtful design touches. Lots of natural woods, old fashioned travelling trunks as decoration and multi-nozzle showers are part of the look, while there are free bikes for those who want to cycle to the glade. Prices start at €120 a night.
More information: musee-armistice-14-18.fr ; compiegne-tourisme.fr; uk.france.fr
RECORD%20BREAKER
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Company%20Profile
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'Panga'
Directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Starring Kangana Ranaut, Richa Chadha, Jassie Gill, Yagya Bhasin, Neena Gupta
Rating: 3.5/5
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Ain Dubai in numbers
126: The length in metres of the legs supporting the structure
1 football pitch: The length of each permanent spoke is longer than a professional soccer pitch
16 A380 Airbuses: The equivalent weight of the wheel rim.
9,000 tonnes: The amount of steel used to construct the project.
5 tonnes: The weight of each permanent spoke that is holding the wheel rim in place
192: The amount of cable wires used to create the wheel. They measure a distance of 2,4000km in total, the equivalent of the distance between Dubai and Cairo.
Afghanistan fixtures
- v Australia, today
- v Sri Lanka, Tuesday
- v New Zealand, Saturday,
- v South Africa, June 15
- v England, June 18
- v India, June 22
- v Bangladesh, June 24
- v Pakistan, June 29
- v West Indies, July 4
Results
2.30pm: Dubai Creek Tower – Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (Dirt) 1,200m; Winner: Marmara Xm, Gary Sanchez (jockey), Abdelkhir Adam (trainer)
3pm: Al Yasmeen – Maiden (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 1,700m; Winner: AS Hajez, Jesus Rosales, Khalifa Al Neyadi
3.30pm: Al Ferdous – Maiden (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 1,700m; Winner: Soukainah, Sebastien Martino, Jean-Claude Pecout
4pm: The Crown Prince Of Sharjah – Prestige (PA) Dh200,000 (D) 1,200m; Winner: AF Thayer, Ray Dawson, Ernst Oertel
4.30pm: Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Cup – Handicap (TB) Dh200,000 (D) 2,000m; Winner: George Villiers, Antonio Fresu, Bhupat Seemar
5pm: Palma Spring – Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 2,000m; Winner: Es Abu Mousa, Antonio Fresu, Abubakar Daud
The specs
Common to all models unless otherwise stated
Engine: 4-cylinder 2-litre T-GDi
0-100kph: 5.3 seconds (Elantra); 5.5 seconds (Kona); 6.1 seconds (Veloster)
Power: 276hp
Torque: 392Nm
Transmission: 6-Speed Manual/ 8-Speed Dual Clutch FWD
Price: TBC
The specs
Engine: 3-litre twin-turbo V6
Power: 400hp
Torque: 475Nm
Transmission: 9-speed automatic
Price: From Dh215,900
On sale: Now
DUBAI%20BLING%3A%20EPISODE%201
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Destroyer
Director: Karyn Kusama
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Toby Kebbell, Sebastian Stan
Rating: 3/5
UAE release: January 31
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, last-16, second leg (first-leg scores in brackets):
PSG (2) v Manchester United (0)
Midnight (Thursday), BeIN Sports
Manchester City 4
Otamendi (52) Sterling (59) Stones (67) Brahim Diaz (81)
Real Madrid 1
Oscar (90)
Frida%20
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The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Brief scoreline:
Manchester United 2
Rashford 28', Martial 72'
Watford 1
Doucoure 90'
WRESTLING HIGHLIGHTS
Green ambitions
- Trees: 1,500 to be planted, replacing 300 felled ones, with veteran oaks protected
- Lake: Brown's centrepiece to be cleaned of silt that makes it as shallow as 2.5cm
- Biodiversity: Bat cave to be added and habitats designed for kingfishers and little grebes
- Flood risk: Longer grass, deeper lake, restored ponds and absorbent paths all meant to siphon off water
Liverpool’s fixtures until end of 2019
Saturday, November 30, Brighton (h)
Wednesday, December 4, Everton (h)
Saturday, December 7, Bournemouth (a)
Tuesday, December 10, Salzburg (a) CL
Saturday, December 14, Watford (h)
Tuesday, December 17, Aston Villa (a) League Cup
Wednesday, December 18, Club World Cup in Qatar
Saturday, December 21, Club World Cup in Qatar
Thursday, December 26, Leicester (a)
Sunday, December 29, Wolves (h)
Naga
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Abaya trends
The utilitarian robe held dear by Arab women is undergoing a change that reveals it as an elegant and graceful garment available in a range of colours and fabrics, while retaining its traditional appeal.
Five expert hiking tips
Always check the weather forecast before setting off
Make sure you have plenty of water
Set off early to avoid sudden weather changes in the afternoon
Wear appropriate clothing and footwear
Take your litter home with you
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Manchester United v Club America
When: Thursday, 9pm Arizona time (Friday UAE, 8am)
Tips from the expert
Dobromir Radichkov, chief data officer at dubizzle and Bayut, offers a few tips for UAE residents looking to earn some cash from pre-loved items.
- Sellers should focus on providing high-quality used goods at attractive prices to buyers.
- It’s important to use clear and appealing photos, with catchy titles and detailed descriptions to capture the attention of prospective buyers.
- Try to advertise a realistic price to attract buyers looking for good deals, especially in the current environment where consumers are significantly more price-sensitive.
- Be creative and look around your home for valuable items that you no longer need but might be useful to others.
