COVID: New variant 'surpasses the most pessimistic models'

A new strain of COVID-19 that reached Ireland from the UK is now spreading at a rapid rate, Prime Minister Micheal Martin announced in a televised address on Wednesday.

"While international research for this new variant is ongoing, it is already very clear that we are dealing with a strain of the disease that spreads much, much more quickly," he said.  

"It is spreading at a rate that has surpassed the most pessimistic models available to us," said Martin, adding that Ireland would tighten public-health restrictions in the next four weeks. 

The prime minister ordered nonessential retailers to be closed and extended the travel ban on arrivals from the UK and South Africa until January 6.

North America

The highly infectious coronavirus strain originally found in the UK has been detected in California, Governor Gavin Newsom said. The discovery comes just a day after the first known US case was documented in Colorado.

Newsom did not immediately provide further details about the case, but infectious disease specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci said he was "not surprised," adding that additional cases were likely to surface in California and other states. Scientists believe that the new strain is significantly more contagious than others previously identified, but is no more severe in the symptoms that it causes. 

The UK variant, known as B.1.1.7, has also been found in Canada, Italy, India and the United Arab Emirates.

Europe

France is considering starting its curfew earlier in the evening in parts of the country, Health Minister Olivier Veran said. The government has, however, ruled out a return to a full lockdown, he said. The proposal is to extend the existing 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, to begin at 6 p.m. in the regions hit hardest by the second wave. 

While Veran singled out four eastern regions particularly hard hit by the surge in infections, his ministry said the extended curfew might eventually be extended to as many as 20 regions. France has so far recorded over 2.5 million cases and 64,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Germany recorded 22,459 new infections, bringing the total to 1,687,185 since the start of the pandemic, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the death toll rose by 1,129 to 32,107. 

Germany, which received praise for its early management of the pandemic, has seen record daily death tolls and new case figures in recent weeks. The country is currently under a lockdown, which has seen retailers shut and students sent back to remote learning. 

Asia

Thai officials have announced new restrictions, including the closure of some entertainment facilities, over the New Year's holiday amid a new spike in infections. As part of the new measures, hostess bars, gambling venues and massage parlors were ordered shut.

After months of appearing to have the situation under control, Thailand has seen two major clusters of the virus develop. 

One of the clusters mainly infected hundreds of migrant workers from Myanmar at a seafood market near Bangkok, while in recent days, a cluster has grown connected to a gambling den in an eastern province. 

Chinese pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm's CNBG Beijing vaccine has shown 79.34% effectiveness at protecting people from COVID-19 in Phase III trials, the developer said on Wednesday.

This is lower than rival jabs developed by BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna which both showed over 90% efficacy.

The company has filed an application for regulatory approval in China for its general public use.

The United Arab Emirates has approved remote learning for schools for the first two weeks of the new term starting on January 3, the Abu Dhabi media office said on Twitter on Wednesday.

The move is to protect the health of students and staff from the virus.

Latin America

Latin America and the Caribbean became the second region after Europe to top 500,000 deaths, according to an AFP tally. There have been at least 500,800 deaths among the 29 countries in the region, with more than half of those in Brazil and Mexico. 

lc, mvb/sri (AFP, Reuters, AP)