Coronavirus Live Updates: 30 US States And DC Confirm Omicron Variant Cases – The Washington Post

Getting a booster shot after being fully vaccinated against the coronavirus offers the “best and optimal protection” against the omicron variant, Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, said on Sunday.

Fauci, speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” cited preliminary data showing that a booster shot raises the level of protection high enough to “do well against” omicron and urged Americans to get vaccinated or boosted.

Preliminary data has shown that, with its slew of mutations, the omicron variant may evade some of the protection offered by the primary regimen to be considered fully vaccinated. However, some studies have indicated that booster shots can raise the level of antibodies high enough to block omicron.

Fauci said that for official purposes, two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine or one shot of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine still count as full vaccination. “We’ll be continuing to evaluate what the official designation is,” he said when asked whether additional shots should now be considered the standard.

“But for now, if you want to be optimally protected, absolutely get a booster if you’ve already had your primary vaccination,” he continued.

In a school year widely described as the most grueling of the pandemic, schools have come up with at least one fix for teacher burnout: more half days.

In Virginia’s Hampton Roads area, Suffolk Public Schools is shortening instructional hours every other Wednesday to help take the pressure off beleaguered educators. In Maryland, at least six school districts have remade their calendars for this school year to add more early-release days.

Rick Briggs, chief academic officer in Maryland’s Wicomico County school district, which includes the Eastern Shore city of Salisbury, said his system converted seven full days to half days because of “the stress and the anxiety and the wearing-down of staff like none of us have ever seen before.”

Here’s what to know about the top coronavirus stories around the globe from news service reports.

Four unrelated cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus were confirmed Sunday in the District, the city’s health department said. These were apparently the first such cases to be found in Washington of the variant that is rapidly spreading in many countries.

City health officials said the four people who have the variant are:

• A woman who had traveled within the United States to Florida and New York. She was fully vaccinated but without the booster shot.
• A woman who traveled to Maryland during the Thanksgiving holiday. She was fully vaccinated, but it was not known whether she had received a booster shot.
• A man who is not known to have traveled. He was fully vaccinated, but it was not known whether he had received a booster shot.
• A woman who had been to Virginia during the holiday. She had been fully vaccinated, but it was not known whether she had received a booster shot.

Brazil’s supreme court has ruled that foreign travelers must show proof of vaccination against the coronavirus to enter the country — a blow to President Jair Bolsonaro, who is unvaccinated and has repeatedly rejected requests to impose a vaccine mandate in a country that has the world’s second-highest death toll after the United States.

Justice Luís Roberto Barroso cited “the threat of [current policies] promoting anti-vaccine tourism” as grounds for the ruling Saturday, Al Jazeera reported.

It is not clear when the new requirements will be implemented. Barroso’s ruling will be reviewed next week by the 10 other judges who make up Brazil’s highest court, according to Al Jazeera.

The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said Sunday that of the confirmed omicron cases it had severity information on, all were asymptomatic or mild.

As of Sunday, 766 omicron cases had been confirmed in the European Union, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, the center said. It added that no omicron-related deaths had been reported in the region.

The center cautioned that while the information was encouraging, it should be “assessed with caution, as the number of confirmed cases is too low” to fully determine whether the illness caused by the omicron variant differs from that of delta or other variants.

Scientists have yet to ascertain the full scope of the omicron variant, though health officials, including Anthony S. Fauci, the United States’ top infectious-disease expert, have said that initial reports indicating the variant could be mild are encouraging.

Omicron was quickly categorized by the World Health Organization as a “variant of concern” because of its plethora of mutations. A complete profile of its traits could come within the next few weeks, scientists say.

BERLIN — After the chancellor himself, one of the most scrutinized positions in Germany’s new government is the health minister, a doctor who is a household name and has received death threats for his stern advice on handling the coronavirus pandemic.

Karl Lauterbach, a 58-year-old with Harvard degrees in public health and epidemiology, became a kind of Anthony S. Fauci equivalent as the pandemic unfolded and he was constantly in the public eye on German TV and in social media. He became known for his strict prescriptions for how Germany could protect itself from the spread of the disease.

There was even a “wewantkarl” Twitter hashtag supporting his candidacy in the run-up to his appointment.