Omicron variant: Vaccine manufacturers rush to update shot: LIVE UPDATES

Health officials in Japan have confirmed eight more cases of the new omicron variant of the coronavirus, bringing the country's total to 12, the government said Friday.

The eight tested positive for the virus when they arrived at Japanese airports from late November to earlier this month, the health ministry said in a statement.

Two of them, a woman in her 30s and a boy, arrived from Namibia on Nov. 28 on the same flight as a Namibian diplomat who was Japan's first confirmed case of the omicron variant, Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara said.

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Mortgage rates decreased slightly this week, holding relatively steady as the market awaits new information on the COVID-19 omicron variant, according to the latest data from Freddie Mac.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage decreased from 3.11% last week to 3.1% annual percentage rate (APR) for the week ending Dec. 9, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. This is up from 2.71% at the same time last year. 

"Mortgage rates have moved sideways over the last several weeks, fluctuating within a narrow range," Freddie Mac Chief Economist Sam Khater said. "Going forward, the path that rates take will be directly impacted by more information about the Omicron variant as it is revealed and the overall trajectory of the pandemic. In the meantime, rates remain low and stable, even as the nation faces declining housing affordability and low inventory."

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More states found cases of the omicron coronavirus variant on Thursday. 

In Virginia, health officials reported the first case in an adult resident of the northwestern part of the state. 

In a news release, the Virginia Department of Health said the individual had no history of international travel, but did have a history of domestic travel during the exposure period.

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Moderna Chairman Noubar Afeyan, during an interview on FOX Business’ "Mornings with Maria" Friday, said it is working on "further protection" against coronavirus, and it is in the final stages of testing a booster vaccine that's effective against the omicron variant.

"The threat has to be taken seriously," Afeyan told Maria Bartiromo. "The best approach is going to be to get the unvaccinated vaccinated, those who need boosts to be boosted, and then we need to work as developers of the vaccine on the most effective, further protection should we need it. That's what we are working on at Moderna."

Afeyan said he expects booster efficiency data to be released sometime next week.

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The Houston, Texas skyline over Root Square. (Credit: iStock)

Traces of the omicron COVID-19 variant have been found in the wastewater of American cities.

Sewage testing in California – where omicron was first detected in the U.S. at the beginning of the month – found signs of the "variant of concern" in both Sacramento and Merced counties. No cases have been reported there, KTVU reported Thursday.

Officials told Fox 40 that the findings indicate that the clinical cases of the variant "probably exist." 

There are 12 confirmed omicron cases in California.

In Boulder, Colorado, the state's wastewater testing system detected levels of the variant, leading public health officials to tell reporters that there is likely "some low-level of community transmission," according to Fox 31.

There are only two cases in the state. 

In Houston, Texas, the variant was detected in wastewater earlier this week. 

"In an emotional level, I was a little disappointed. I really wasn’t surprised- Houston is an International city," Dr. David Persse, the city's chief medical officer, told Fox 26 on Tuesday. "It really clearly points out that we have got a community spread of Omicron in Houston."

"The Houston Health Department and Houston Water continue to do an exceptional job tracking the impact of the virus in our community. While no specific case of the omicron variant has been confirmed in an individual in the city of Houston, we should use this information as a reminder to get fully vaccinated, including a booster shot," Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement. "Vaccines help protect us, our loved ones, friends, and colleagues in the work environment. As the holidays approach, I encourage everyone to remain vigilant about their health and safety."

The first omicron case in Texas was detected in a Houston woman.

Community spread has also been suspected in Georgia, where the department of public health said it had confirmed a case of the variant in an unvaccinated Atlanta-area resident who had not traveled abroad recently. Monitoring wastewater helps officials to understand the concentration and spread of the omicron mutation.

Scientists are also working to determine how easily the variant spreads compared to others, whether it can cause more severe illness and whether it can evade immune protection and COVID-19 vaccines. 

It is unclear whether omicron will become the country's dominant strain. The delta variant still accounts for more than 99% of COVID-19 cases nationwide.

Omicron has now been detected in more than 20 states stretching across the country, including Florida, Hawaii, New York, Minnesota and Massachusetts. 

In a Thursday interview, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said cases of omicron have been mostly mild so far.

CDC officials said one person was hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A security person moves journalists away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology after a World Health Organization team arrived for a field visit in Wuhan in China's Hubei province on Feb. 3, 2021. Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the origin of the virus tormenting the world remains shrouded in mystery. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the origin of the virus tormenting the world remains shrouded in mystery.

Most scientists believe it emerged in the wild and jumped from bats to humans, either directly or through another animal. Others theorize it escaped from a Chinese lab.

Now, with the global COVID-19 death toll surpassing 5.2 million on the second anniversary of the earliest human cases, a growing chorus of scientists is trying to keep the focus on what they regard as the more plausible "zoonotic," or animal-to-human, theory, in the hope that what’s learned will help humankind fend off new viruses and variants.

"The lab-leak scenario gets a lot of attention, you know, on places like Twitter," but "there’s no evidence that this virus was in a lab," said University of Utah scientist Stephen Goldstein, who with 20 others wrote an article in the journal Cell in August laying out evidence for animal origin.

Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who contributed to the article, had signed a letter with other scientists last spring saying both theories were viable. Since then, he said, his own and others’ research has made him even more confident than he had been about the animal hypothesis, which is "just way more supported by the data."

Last month, Worobey published a COVID-19 timeline linking the first known human case to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, where live animals were sold.

"The lab leak idea is almost certainly a huge distraction that’s taking focus away from what actually happened," he said.

Others aren’t so sure. Over the summer, a review ordered by President Biden showed that four U.S. intelligence agencies believed with low confidence that the virus was initially transmitted from an animal to a human, and one agency believed with moderate confidence that the first infection was linked to a lab.

Some supporters of the lab-leak hypothesis have theorized that researchers were accidentally exposed because of inadequate safety practices while working with samples from the wild, or perhaps after creating the virus in the laboratory. U.S. intelligence officials have rejected suspicions China developed the virus as a bioweapon.

The continuing search for answers has inflamed tensions between the U.S. and China, which has accused the U.S. of making it the scapegoat for the disaster. Some experts fear the pandemic’s origins may never be known.

FROM BATS TO PEOPLE

Scientists said in the Cell paper that SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is the ninth documented coronavirus to infect humans. All previous ones originated in animals.

That includes the virus that caused the 2003 SARS epidemic, which also has been associated with markets selling live animals in China.

Many researchers believe wild animals were intermediate hosts for SARS-CoV-2, meaning they were infected with a bat coronavirus that then evolved. Scientists have been looking for the exact bat coronavirus involved, and in September identified three viruses in bats in Laos more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than any known viruses.

Worobey suspects raccoon dogs were the intermediate host. The fox-like mammals are susceptible to coronaviruses and were being sold live at the Huanan market, he said.

"The gold-standard piece of evidence for an animal origin" would be an infected animal from there, Goldstein said. "But as far as we know, the market was cleared out."

Earlier this year, a joint report by the World Health Organization and China called the transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal the most likely scenario and a lab leak "extremely unlikely."

But that report also sowed doubt by pegging the first known COVID-19 case as an accountant who had no connection to the Huanan market and first showed symptoms on Dec. 8, 2019.

Worobey said proponents of the lab-leak theory point to that case in claiming the virus escaped from a Wuhan Institute of Virology facility near where the man lived.

According to Worobey’s research, however, the man said in an interview that his Dec. 8 illness was actually a dental problem, and his COVID-19 symptoms began on Dec. 16, a date confirmed in hospital records.

Worobey’s analysis identifies an earlier case: a vendor in the Huanan market who came down with COVID-19 on Dec. 11.

ANIMAL THREATS

Experts worry the same sort of animal-to-human transmission of viruses could spark new pandemics — and worsen this one.

Since COVID-19 emerged, many types of animals have gotten infected, including pet cats, dogs and ferrets; zoo animals such as big cats, otters and non-human primates; farm-raised mink; and white-tailed deer.

Most got the virus from people, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says that humans can spread it to animals during close contact but that the risk of animals transmitting it to people is low.

Another fear, however, is that animals could unleash new viral variants. Some wonder if the omicron variant began this way."

Around the world, we might have animals potentially incubating these variants even if we get (COVID-19) under control in humans," said David O’Connor, a virology expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "We’re probably not going to do a big giraffe immunization program any time soon."

Worobey said he has been looking for genetic fingerprints that might indicate whether omicron was created when the virus jumped from humans to an animal, mutated, and then leaped back to people.

Experts say preventing zoonotic disease will require not only cracking down on illegal wildlife sales but making progress on big global problems that increase risky human-animal contact, such as habitat destruction and climate change.

Failing to fully investigate the animal origin of the virus, scientists said in the Cell paper, "would leave the world vulnerable to future pandemics arising from the same human activities that have repeatedly put us on a collision course with novel viruses."

‘TOXIC’ POLITICS

But further investigation is stymied by superpower politics. Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University said there has been a "bare-knuckles fight" between China and the United States.

"The politics around the origins investigation has literally poisoned the well of global cooperation," said Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. "The politics have literally been toxic."

An AP investigation last year found that the Chinese government was strictly controlling all research into COVID-19′s origins and promoting fringe theories that the virus could have come from outside the country.

"This is a country that’s by instinct very closed, and it was never going to allow unfettered access by foreigners into its territory," Gostin said.

Still, Gostin said there’s one positive development that has come out of the investigation.

WHO has formed an advisory group to look into the pandemic’s origins. And Gostin said that while he doubts the panel will solve the mystery, "they will have a group of highly qualified scientists ready to be deployed in an instant in the next pandemic."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

How will the world decide when the pandemic is over? (AP Illustration/Peter Hamlin)

How will the world decide when the pandemic is over?

There’s no clear-cut definition for when a pandemic starts and ends, and how much of a threat a global outbreak is posing can vary by country.

"It’s somewhat a subjective judgment because it’s not just about the number of cases. It’s about severity, and it’s about impact," says Dr. Michael Ryan, the World Health Organization's emergencies chief.

In January 2020, WHO designated the virus a global health crisis "of international concern." A couple months later in March, the United Nations health agency described the outbreak as a pandemic, reflecting the fact that the virus had spread to nearly every continent and that numerous health officials were describing it as a pandemic.

The pandemic may be widely considered over when WHO decides the virus is no longer an emergency of international concern, a designation its expert committee has been reassessing every three months. But when the most acute phases of the crisis ease within countries could vary.

"There is not going to be one day when someone says, ‘OK, the pandemic is over,’" says Dr. Chris Woods, an infectious disease expert at Duke University. Although there's no universally agreed-upon criteria, he said countries will likely look for sustained reduction in cases over time.

Scientists expect COVID-19 will eventually settle into becoming a more predictable virus like the flu, meaning it will cause seasonal outbreaks but not the huge surges we’re seeing right now. But even then, Woods says, some habits, such as wearing masks in public places, might continue.

"Even after the pandemic ends, COVID will still be with us," he says.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A man gets vaccinated against COVID-19 at a site near Johannesburg, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021. Omicron cases have been confirmed in at least nine African countries, with South Africa remaining the epicenter, with officials reporting that initial cases appear to be mild. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

South African excess deaths nearly doubled in the week beginning Nov. 28 from the previous week, according to a South African Medical Research Council report.

About 2,076 weekly excess deaths from natural causes were recorded, with the cumulative excess deaths since May 3, 2020, reaching close to 276,000 for all age groups.

In the preceding week, 1,091 excess deaths from natural causes were reported.

Weekly deaths are still below their mid-January peak of around 15,000 for the country. South Africa's official coronavirus death toll is just over 90,000, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

This update comes as South Africa reported nearly 20,000 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday – a record since the detection of the omicron variant, according to Reuters. 

It was not immediately clear how many infections had been caused by omicron, though the "variant of concern" has spread to at least 11 African countries. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday that weekly COVID-19 cases in the continent surged by 93%, though hospitalizations across South Africa remain low.

The agency said that Africa had recorded more than 107,000 cases in the week ending Dec. 5, up from around 55,000. Southern Africa recorded the highest increase in new cases, with a 140% hike "mainly driven by an uptick in South Africa."

More research is being conducted to determine whether omicron is fueling the surge of cases seen in Africa, the WHO noted, adding that emerging data from South Africa indicates omicron may cause less severe illness.

Some officials in African countries have reported that initial cases appear to be mild.

Namibia has confirmed 18 cases of omicron, none of which are hospitalized, the country’s health minister Kalumbi Shangula said.

"Cases are going up, but admissions are low," Shangula explained.

"Omicron is a new variant, more is yet to be known about it, its behavior and the effect that it will have on the pandemic trajectory," he added. "The information available indicates current vaccines are still effective in reducing severe illness, hospitalization and death."

Much remains unknown about omicron's severity, transmissibility and ability to evade vaccines and immune response. 

However, top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has said that omicron "almost certainly is not more severe" than the delta variant and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Walensky told The Associated Press that mostly all 40 people infected with omicron in America are only mildly ill.

One person was hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported, CDC officials said.

The WHO said preliminary data on hospitalizations in South Africa between Nov. 14 and Dec. 4 found that ICU occupancy was only 6.3% — a low number compared to when the country was facing the peak linked to the delta variant in July.

Africa accounts for nearly half of the nearly 1,000 omicron cases reported by 57 countries and has administered 248 million COVID-19 vaccine doses so far. Only 7.8% of Africa's population is fully vaccinated and the director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that African governments might have to resort to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

"We don’t need to get there if we just do the right thing," Africa CDC's director John Nkengasong told reporters.

Only six African countries have met the global target of vaccinating 40% of their populations against COVID-19 by the end of this year. The African continent is now receiving around 20 million vaccine doses a week, but some countries have been unable to distribute vaccine donations in time and have handed back doses or destroyed them.

Nkengasong called vaccine hesitancy there "extremely unfortunate" after African officials have fought for months against dramatic vaccine inequality between their nations and richer ones around the world.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

People wait in line to get tested for COVID-19 at a testing facility in Times Square on December 09, 2021 in New York City.

Vaccine makers are racing to update their COVID-19 shots against the newest coronavirus threat even before it’s clear a change is needed, just in case.

Experts doubt today’s shots will become useless but say it’s critical to see how fast companies could produce a reformulated dose and prove it works -- because whatever happens with omicron, this newest mutant won’t be the last.

Omicron "is pulling the fire alarm. Whether it turns out to be a false alarm, it would be really good to know if we can actually do this -- get a new vaccine rolled out and be ready," said immunologist E. John Wherry of the University of Pennsylvania.

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