BlackMask Breaking News

Dec 20 (Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes opened lower on Monday, dragged by concerns about the impact of tighter COVID-19 curbs on the global economy, and a potentially devastating setback to President Joe Biden’s investment bill. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 143.32 points, or 0.41%, at the open to 35,222.12. The S&P 500 (.SPX) opened lower by 32.74 points, or 0.71%, at 4,587.90, while the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 236.68 points, or 1.56%, to 14,933.00 at the opening bell. NN: Just like in oil stocks are trading in a well worn range. We are seeing tax selling, funds locking in profits for year end and some Lockdown fears. Which is not definitive. So we stand aside and wait. A LOT of buyers are standing on the sidelines

The other shots — including those from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and vaccines manufactured in China and Russia — do little to nothing to stop the spread of omicron, early research shows.

And because most countries have built their inoculation programs around these vaccines, the gap could have a profound impact on the course of the pandemic. A global surge of infections in a world where billions of people remain unvaccinated not only threatens the health of vulnerable individuals but also increases the opportunity for the emergence of yet more variants. The disparity in the ability of countries to weather the pandemic will almost certainly deepen. And the news about limited vaccine efficacy against omicron infection could depress demand for vaccination throughout the developing world, where many people are already hesitant or preoccupied with other health problems. Most evidence so far is based on laboratory experiments, which do not capture the full range of the body’s immune response, and not from tracking the effect on real-world populations. The results are striking, however. The Pfizer and Moderna shots use the new mRNA technology, which has consistently offered the best protection against infection with every variant. All of the other vaccines are based on older methods of triggering an immune response. The Chinese vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac — which make up almost half of all shots delivered globally — offer almost zero protection from omicron infection. The great majority of people in China have received these shots, which are also widely used in low- and middle-income countries such as Mexico and Brazil. A preliminary effectiveness study in Britain found that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine showed no ability to stop omicron infection six months after vaccination. Ninety percent of vaccinated people in India received this shot, under the brand name Covishield; it has also been widely used across much of sub-Saharan Africa, where COVAX, the global COVID vaccine program, has distributed 67 million doses of it to 44 countries. Researchers predict that Russia’s Sputnik vaccine, which is also being used in Africa and Latin America, will show similarly dismal rates of protection against omicron. Demand for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been surging in Africa, because its single-shot delivery regimen makes it easy to deliver in low-resource settings. But it too has shown a negligible ability to block omicron infection. Antibodies are the first line of defense induced by vaccines. But the shots also stimulate the growth of T cells, and preliminary studies suggest that these T cells still recognize the omicron variant, which is important in preventing severe disease. “What you lose first is protection against asymptomatic mild infection, what you retain much better is protection against severe disease and death,” said John Moore, a virus expert at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. He called it “a silver lining” that omicron so far appears less lethal than the delta variant. But this protection will not be enough to prevent omicron from causing global disruption, said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for International and Strategic Studies. “The sheer scale of infection will overwhelm health systems, simply because the denominator will be potentially so big,” he said. “If you have a burst of infection worldwide, a shock, what does the world look like on other side of it? Is it, ‘The war is over,’ or, ‘The war has just entered another phase’? We haven’t begun thinking about any of that.” People with breakthrough cases may experience only asymptomatic infection or mild illness, but they can pass the virus to unvaccinated people, who could fall more severely ill, and become a source of new variants. Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, said that more data was needed before drawing conclusions about vaccines’ effectiveness against omicron — and that accelerated vaccination should continue to be the focus of pandemic response. Preliminary data from South Africa suggest that with omicron, there is a much higher chance of people who already had COVID getting reinfected than there was with the original virus and previous variants. But some public health experts say they believe that countries that have already been through brutal waves of COVID, such as Brazil and India, may have a buffer against omicron, and vaccination after infection produces high antibody levels. “The combination of vaccination and exposure to the virus seems to be stronger than only having the vaccine,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, a public health researcher in New Delhi. India, he noted, has an adult vaccination rate of only about 40% but 90% exposure to the virus in some areas. “Without a doubt omicron is going to flood through India,” he said. “But hopefully India is protected to some extent because of vaccination and exposure.” China does not have this layer of protection to back up its weak vaccines. Because of China’s aggressive efforts to stop spread of the virus within its borders, relatively few people have previous exposure. Only an estimated 7% of people in Wuhan, where the pandemic began, were infected.Much of Latin America has relied on the Chinese and Russian vaccines, and on AstraZeneca. Mario Rosemblatt, a professor of immunology at the University of Chile, said that more than 90% of Chileans had had two doses of one vaccine, but the great majority of these were Coronavac, the Sinovac shot.

High vaccination coverage combined with early reports that omicron does not cause serious illness is leading to a false sense of security in the country, he said.

“We have to get people to understand that it doesn’t work like that: If you get high transmissibility you’re going to have the health system saturated because the number of people getting ill will be higher,” he said. Brazil has recommended that all vaccinated people get a third dose, and it started using Pfizer’s vaccine for all boosters, but only 40% of the vaccinated have turned up to get the extra shot. Dr. Amilcar Tanuri, a virus expert at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said with cautious optimism that the high levels of previous COVID exposure might blunt omicron’s impact but noted that the most vulnerable Brazilians, vaccinated first, got Coronavac, and tens of millions more were given AstraZeneca. Morrison called omicron’s ability to evade the protection of vaccination “a massive setback” for low- and middle-income countries, where, far from any discussion of boosters, the focus is still on delivering first shots. “The world gets cleaved into two parts, right?” he said. “It’s those that have a quick path toward boosters versus those who have had very limited progress and suddenly they’re subject to this new lashing.” Just 13% of people in Africa have received a least one dose of a COVID vaccine. Laxminarayan said the Indian government, to which he is an occasional adviser, was considering booster shots, but the delta variant still poses a significant threat in India, and two vaccine doses offers protection against delta. That presents the government with a difficult choice between focusing on getting people who remain unvaccinated, or only partly vaccinated, to two doses, or trying to gets boosters to older people and those with high-risk medical conditions as protection against omicron. The news that the non-mRNA vaccines offer little protection against infection from omicron may further erode demand for shots in countries already struggling to build demand, Morrison said. “This challenges the whole value of vaccines,” he said. “If you’re so far behind and then you suffer this, it’s going to feed anti-vaccine sentiment and weaken confidence.” NN: Know you know why i urged you to get the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. These other vaccines are worthless. Which means they got to start the circle jerk from the start. And they have run out of time,

It comes after scientific advisers to the Government said hospital admissions with the variant in the UK are “probably around one tenth of the true number” due to a lag in reporting.The “situation update” from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) on Thursday was published on Saturday and said that it is “almost certain that there are now hundreds of thousands of new Omicron infections per day” in England. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has declared a major incident due to the “hugely concerning” surge in cases across the capital, as he voiced fears about staff absences in vital public services including the NHS, the fire service and police due to infection.Asked about a possible tightening of restrictions after Christmas, a Government spokesman said they will “continue to look closely at all data and keep our measures under review”. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the current measures are “responsible and proportionate”, even as he admitted being torn over their introduction. “Standing in Parliament this week and arguing for Plan B brought me no joy – promoting individual freedom and opportunity is one of the reasons I got into politics,” he wrote in The Sunday Telegraph. “But we have to be clear-eyed about the challenge Omicron presents. Our strategy since it emerged has been and remains to buy time for our scientists to assess the threat and build up our defences … Together we are taking a responsible and proportionate response,” he added. The prospect of new rules comes less than a week after Boris Johnson suffered a rebellion from a large number of Conservative backbenchers who defied him to vote against the mandatory use of Covid health passes for large venues. Brexit minister Lord Frost, who quit on Saturday, gave an indication of his belief as to the Prime Minister’s mindset, saying in his resignation letter that “we also need to learn to live with Covid and I know that is your instinct too”. Meanwhile, the Mirror reported that the royal family’s traditional Christmas Day walk to church might not be accessible to the public due to the pandemic. Buckingham Palace declined to comment but it is understood Christmas plans remain under consideration. The Sunday Telegraph reported a source as saying options include the Queen remaining at Windsor Castle. Last week, it was confirmed the traditional pre-Christmas family party for the royals, due to be held on Tuesday, was being cancelled amid concerns it could put too many people’s festive arrangements at risk if it went ahead. The latest figures from the UK Health Security Agency showed there had been 10,059 additional confirmed cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 reported across the UK, bringing the total confirmed cases of the variant across the four nations to 24,968. In England, the number of deaths of people with the Omicron variant has risen to seven, and hospital admissions for people with confirmed or suspected Omicron rose to 85. Advice from the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, Operational sub-group (SPI-M-O), in documents also released on Saturday but dated December 8 said that, in almost all modelling, a significant reduction in transmission “similar in scale to the national lockdown” of January this year would be required “to keep hospitalisations below the height of previous peaks”.

Experts warned that indoor mixing is the “biggest risk factor” for the spread of the variant, and that large gatherings risked creating “multiple spreading events”.

They said the ramping up of the booster programme would not help in terms of hospitals admissions at this stage, as many would be those who are infected now, before immunity has had time to build. The Liberal Democrats have called for Parliament to be recalled on Monday to debate the next steps, with party leader Sir Ed Davey saying: “We cannot allow the Prime Minister to sit on his hands while the NHS and businesses are on the brink of collapse.”

Stephen Reicher, professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews and member of Sage, said it was clear that Plan B measures alone would not be enough to stop the spiralling numbers of cases and cautioned that waiting until after Christmas to act is “probably too late”.

A Cobra meeting was expected to be held at some point over the weekend with the devolved nations. NN: How high a price must they pay Christmas. We mandate isolation for infectious TB sufferers. I think its a time for a rethink on vaccine mandates. Come January their will be hell to pay. We do not know yet how deadly this Omicron mutant really is. So far its the most infectious to date. In the mean time i suggest taking no chances till we have more informations