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| IMAGE: ALJAZERRA, 30 November 2021 |
Just two days ago Scott Morrison stood in front of the cameras:
Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Infrastructure, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Minister for Women, Minister for Health and Aged Care, Minister for Home Affairs, Joint Media Statement, 29 November 2021, excerpt:
On the basis of medical advice provided by the Chief Medical Officer of Australia, Professor Paul Kelly, the National Security Committee has taken the necessary and temporary decision to pause the next step to safely reopen Australia to international skilled and student cohorts, as well as humanitarian, working holiday maker and provisional family visa holders from 1 December until 15 December.
The reopening to travellers from Japan and the Republic of Korea will also be paused until 15 December.
The temporary pause will ensure Australia can gather the information we need to better understand the Omicron variant, including the efficacy of the vaccine, the range of illness, including if it may generate more mild symptoms, and the level of transmission.
Australia’s border is already closed to travellers except fully vaccinated Australian citizens, permanent residents and immediate family, as well as fully vaccinated green lane travellers from New Zealand and Singapore and limited exemptions.
All arrivals to Australia also require a negative PCR test and to complete Australian traveller declaration forms detailing their vaccination status and confirming requirements to comply with state and territory public health requirements…..
New Zealand currently has a LEVEL 4 (RED) Travel Advisory Alert on Australia warning that if its citizens travel they may have difficulty with being allowed back into New Zealand at a future date and, since 8 November 2021 Singapore has allowed fully vaccinated travellers from Australia to enter Singapore without quarantine, for all purposes of travel.
It is possible that both countries may temporarily close their borders to Australia if community transmission of the Omicron Variant begins in New South Wales.
However, as a suspicion grows around the world that the Omicron Variant has been 'in the wild' for much longer than originally suspected and its community transmission masked by cases being misdiagnosed as Delta Variant, border closures at this stage are thought unlikely to keep SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant out of a country. Rather such closures might at this point only slow down the international mobility of this variant.
Then there is this.....
Reuters, 30 November 2021:
SYDNEY, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The head of drugmaker Moderna (MRNA.O) said COVID-19 vaccines are unlikely to be as effective against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus as they have been previously, sparking fresh worry in financial markets about the trajectory of the pandemic.
"There is no world, I think, where (the effectiveness) is the same level . . . we had with Delta," Moderna Chief Executive Stéphane Bancel told the Financial Times in an interview.
"I think it's going to be a material drop. I just don't know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I've talked to . . . are like 'this is not going to be good.'"
Vaccine resistance could lead to more sickness and hospitalisations and prolong the pandemic, and his comments triggered selling in growth-exposed assets like oil, stocks and the Australian dollar.
Bancel added that the high number of mutations on the protein spike the virus uses to infect human cells meant it was likely the current crop of vaccines would need to be modified.
He had earlier said on CNBC that it could take months to begin shipping a vaccine that does work against Omicron.
BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have all begun working on vaccines that specifically target Omicron in case their existing COVID-19 vaccines are not effective against the new variant.
In Australia the Morrison Government is not yet acknowledging this situation but rather arguing about whether or not to bring forward booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccines as a way of countering Omicron Variant infection.
On 30 November 2021 Australia's total number of known SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant cases stood at six individuals.
BACKGROUND
World Health Organisation, WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the Special Session of the World Health Assembly - 29 November 2021, excerpt:
More than any humans in history, we have the ability to anticipate pandemics, to prepare for them, to unravel the genetics of pathogens, to detect them at their earliest stages, to prevent them spiralling into global disasters, and to respond when they do.
And yet here we are, entering the third year of the most acute health crisis in a century, and the world remains in its grip.
This pestilence – one that we can prevent, detect and treat – continues to cast a long shadow over the world.
Instead of meeting in the aftermath of the pandemic, we are meeting as a fresh wave of cases and deaths crashes into Europe, with untold and uncounted deaths around the world.
And although other regions are seeing declining or stable trends, if there’s one thing we have learned, it’s that no region, no country, no community and no individual is safe until we are all safe.
The emergence of the highly-mutated Omicron variant underlines just how perilous and precarious our situation is.
South Africa and Botswana should be thanked for detecting, sequencing and reporting this variant, not penalized.
Indeed, Omicron demonstrates just why the world needs a new accord on pandemics: our current system disincentivizes countries from alerting others to threats that will inevitably land on their shores.
We don’t yet know whether Omicron is associated with more transmission, more severe disease, more risk of reinfections, or more risk of evading vaccines. Scientists at WHO and around the world are working urgently to answer these questions.
We shouldn’t need another wake-up call; we should all be wide awake to the threat of this virus.
But Omicron’s very emergence is another reminder that although many of us might think we are done with COVID-19, it is not done with us. ……
Full speech can be read here.
World Health Organisation, 29 November 2021:
Given mutations that may confer immune escape potential and possibly transmissibility advantage, the likelihood of potential further spread of Omicron at the global level is high.
Depending on these characteristics, there could be future surges of COVID‐19, which could have severe consequences, depending on a number of factors including where surges may take place. The overall global risk related to the new VOC Omicron is assessed as very high.
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