Coronavirus UpdatesU.S. Enforces Stricter Virus Testing Rules for Travelers

Stricter requirements take effect for inbound travelers to the U.S.

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Travelers at Kennedy International Airport on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.Credit...DeSean McClinton-Holland for The New York Times

The United States began requiring international travelers on Monday to provide proof of a negative coronavirus test taken no more than a day before their flights. The move, intended to limit the spread of the Omicron variant, is causing headaches for many passengers.

Previously, fully vaccinated travelers could provide proof of a negative test taken within 72 hours of departure. The new requirement may be difficult for some to satisfy, because it can take more than a day to receive test results.

The new rules have some travelers wondering if they can stick to their planned itineraries. They are one more hurdle to clear for Americans who are living outside the United States and for foreigners hoping to visit for Christmas and New Year’s. From London to Taipei, travelers have been thinking about the scenarios that could emerge on a trip, like what would happen if a flight is canceled or if the traveler tests positive along the way.

August Dichter, 24, said on Monday that he had already spent two to three hours trying to figure out how to meet the testing requirement for his scheduled flight on Thursday to Philadelphia from London. Mr. Dichter, an American who just completed a yearlong master’s degree program in Wales, said he had gotten conflicting messages from the airline, with some guidelines describing the new requirement and others still saying he had a 72-hour window.

Mr. Dichter said he had been looking forward to traveling around Europe during his studies, but that it had not been easy.

“It’s been a lot of hoops to jump through, and I know that I’m going to be able to jump through them all,” he said. “But they seem to just keep being so tedious, and to add up, and make the arrival of coming home feel just a little further away.”

Global coronavirus cases by region

This chart shows how reported cases per capita have changed in different parts of the world.

  • Africa
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • Middle East
  • U.S. and Canada
Feb. 2020
Sept.
Apr. 2021
Nov.
Jun. 2022
Jan. 2023
100 cases
200 cases per 100,000
Sources: Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and state and local health agencies (cases); World Bank and U.S. Census Bureau (population data).

Another American, Candace Thomas, and her partner, James Ridgers, flew to London from Los Angeles last week for a funeral and said that keeping up with the rule changes has been difficult.

“It’s been very confusing,” said Ms. Thomas, 36, as she and Mr. Ridgers, 43, waited in a long line at St. Pancras train station in London on Monday to get tested before their flight on Tuesday.

“I’m confused right now, actually,” Mr. Ridgers said, because the couple did not have an appointment at the St. Pancras testing center and were unsure if they needed one. They found out soon after that they could not get tested as walk-ins, and made an appointment for three hours later.

The start to their trip was complicated, too. They arrived before Britain’s two-day quarantine requirement came into effect and ended up quarantining unnecessarily for a day because they were unsure whether the requirement applied to them. New rules also required a P.C.R. test, so they spent more than 80 British pounds ($106) each on tests for Day 2 of their trip.

“Every morning, it was waking up to tune in to the news to find out if it had changed or if we were going to need to quarantine for longer, or if we were even going to be able to come home,” Ms. Thomas said. “It was really touch-and-go there for a little while.”

More than a dozen countries around the world, including the United States, have gone a step beyond testing requirements and have barred travelers who have recently been in any of eight southern African countries. Health experts have criticized that policy and have urged caution, because so little is known yet about the Omicron variant, which was first detected and sequenced less than two weeks ago in South Africa.

Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tried to add some perspective on Sunday on the ABC News program “This Week.”

“What we don’t yet know is how transmissible it will be, how well our vaccines will work, whether it will lead to more severe disease,” Dr. Walensky said.

The stricter testing requirement for inbound travelers took effect just as airline travel was experiencing a rebound. The Sunday after Thanksgiving was the busiest travel day at U.S. airports since February 2020, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

With its private-sector vaccine mandate, N.Y.C. has gone where few other U.S. cities and counties have.

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A vaccination site located inside the Brooklyn Children’s Museum in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn.Credit...Anna Watts for The New York Times

The coronavirus vaccine mandate for private employers in New York City, announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday, pushed the city’s workplace vaccination requirements well beyond those in most of the country, where local mandates are generally limited to the public sector and health care.

“It’s a significantly more sweeping policy than we’ve seen other cities put in place,” said Emily Gee, a senior fellow on health policy at the Center for American Progress.

At least 22 states now require coronavirus vaccination for some categories of workers, like those employed by the state or in health care settings or schools, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Dozens of counties and cities, including New York City, have also imposed vaccine requirements on those kinds of workers.

Some workers at restaurants, nightclubs and sports and entertainment venues have been required to get vaccinated in cities that require patrons to present proof of vaccination, like New York City and San Francisco. But otherwise, these mandates have largely left private-sector employers untouched.

Under New York City’s new mandate for private employers, employees who work in-person at private companies must have one dose of the vaccine by Dec. 27. Remote workers will not be required to get the vaccine. There is no testing option as an alternative.

At the federal level, the Biden administration’s mandates for government employees and the military are in effect, but those covering private employers are tied up in court.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued an “emergency” rule in November requiring vaccination or weekly testing for most employees of companies with at least 100 workers, but the rule was stayed last month by a federal court, putting enforcement on hold. Similarly, a nationwide mandate covering most health care workers was recently blocked when a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction.

In general, under federal law, private employers can act on their own to require their workers to be vaccinated, and some major companies have done so, with apparent success. United Airlines, which requires its 67,000 U.S. employees to be vaccinated, said in September that more than 99 percent had complied. Tyson Foods said in October that more than 96 percent of its workers had their shots, up from less than half before the company announced its mandate in August.

A survey of employers last month found that more than half of respondents either already required employees to be vaccinated or planned to do so. The survey, conducted by Willis Towers Watson, a consulting firm, found that just three percent of respondents with vaccine mandates had seen a spike in staff resignations.

Some state governments, though, have adopted laws or issued orders forbidding employers from requiring workers to show proof of vaccination against the coronavirus.

Even so, labor experts say that workplace vaccination requirements are crucial, both to stop the spread of the virus and to encourage more people to return to the labor force.

“Employers are having a hard time getting workers, because workers don’t want to jeopardize their safety and their health,” said Debbie Berkowitz, a former chief of staff at OSHA.

Still, many businesses are reluctant to enforce their own vaccine requirements.

“Employers are hesitant to mandate vaccines, particularly in areas where there is a lot of hesitancy and where vaccines have been politicized,” Ms. Gee said.

With employers worried about alienating customers or workers, and federal efforts tied up in litigation, she said, it is up to local governments to step in with vaccine mandates for private workplaces.

“It is in cities’ self-interest to do this,” Ms. Gee said.

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New York City sets a sweeping vaccine mandate for all private employers.

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New York City Institutes Vaccine Mandate for All Private Employers

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said a sweeping coronavirus vaccine mandate would go into effect for all private employers on Dec. 27 to curb the spread of the Omicron variant. Mr. de Blasio said the measure would apply to about 184,000 businesses.

Omicron is here. No debate about it anymore. It doesn’t matter we’re only getting a few cases in different states. We know it’s here, we know it’s going to spread. It appears to be at this moment very transmissible. We’re waiting for more facts and more evidence, but that’s what we’re seeing so far. What does that mean? You can expect, and I’m sorry to say this, you can expect community spread. We have to assume it’s going to be widespread. We have to assume it’s going to give us a real challenge. This is how we put health and safety first, by ensuring that there is a vaccine mandate that reaches everyone universally in the private sector. A lot of folks in the private sector have said to me they believe in vaccination, but they’re not quite sure how they can do it themselves. Well, we’re going to do it. We’re going to do this so that every employer is on level playing field, one universal standard starting Dec. 27, we’re going to be working with businesses all over the city, and that’s almost 200,000 businesses that are not already covered by the Key to N.Y.C. guidelines, right now. We’re going to be working with the business community. We’re going to be talking to them in the next days on how to put together the right plan to implement this, the specific guidance, the specific rules, will come out in Dec. 15.

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Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said a sweeping coronavirus vaccine mandate would go into effect for all private employers on Dec. 27 to curb the spread of the Omicron variant. Mr. de Blasio said the measure would apply to about 184,000 businesses.CreditCredit...Mary Altaffer/Associated Press

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a sweeping coronavirus vaccine mandate for all private employers in New York City on Monday morning to combat the spread of the Omicron variant.

Mr. de Blasio said the aggressive measure, which takes effect Dec. 27 and which he described as the first of its kind in the nation, was needed as a “pre-emptive strike” to stall another wave of coronavirus cases and help reduce transmission during the winter months and holiday gatherings.

“Omicron is here, and it looks like it’s very transmissible,” he said in an interview on MSNBC. “The timing is horrible with the winter months.”

New York City has already put vaccine mandates in place for city workers and for employees and customers at indoor dining, entertainment and gyms. Nearly 90 percent of adult New York City residents now have at least one dose of the vaccine.

But Mr. de Blasio said the city must go further to combat another wave of the virus in New York City, once the center of the pandemic. Some private employers have required employees to get vaccinated, but many others have not.

Mr. de Blasio said the new measure would apply to about 184,000 businesses. Employees who work in-person at private companies must have one dose of the vaccine by Dec. 27; remote workers will not be required to get the vaccine. There is no testing option as an alternative.

The city plans to offer exemptions for valid medical or religious reasons, Mr. de Blasio said. City officials will release detailed guidelines about issues like enforcement by Dec. 15 after consulting with business leaders.

The mayor also announced that the rules for dining and entertainment would apply to children ages 5 to 11, who must have one dose to enter restaurants and theaters starting on Dec. 14, and that the requirement for adults would increase from one dose of a vaccine to two starting on Dec. 27, except for those who initially received the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Mr. de Blasio and Gov. Kathy Hochul held a news conference last Thursday to announce New York State’s first five cases of the Omicron variant, and several more have been announced in New York City since then. The number of coronavirus cases in the city has increased rapidly in recent weeks; daily case counts have increased more than 75 percent since Nov. 1.

Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat with less than a month left in office, said he was confident the new mandate would survive any legal challenges and he noted that past city mandates had been upheld.

“They have won in court — state court, federal court — every single time,” the mayor said on MSNBC. “And it’s because they’re universal and consistent.”

Eric Adams, the mayor-elect who takes office on Jan. 1, is on vacation in Ghana this week. His spokesman, Evan Thies, said in a statement that Mr. Adams would evaluate the measure once he is mayor.

“The mayor-elect will evaluate this mandate and other Covid strategies when he is in office and make determinations based on science, efficacy and the advice of health professionals,” he said.

Without saying whether or not she agreed with the measure, Ms. Hochul told reporters on Monday afternoon that the mayor had called before his announcement.

“I was aware of this and I support the local government leaders to execute the policies to fight Covid as they believe will be most helpful to deal with this pandemic within their own jurisdictions,” she said.

Ms. Hochul has sought to distinguish herself from her predecessor by empowering local governments to lead the pandemic response in their localities.

“New York City is one of the localities within the state of New York, just as Erie County is,” she noted.

The Biden administration tried to set a federal mandate that all large employers must require workers to get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing starting in January, but that measure is stalled in court.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, issued an “emergency” rule earlier this month requiring vaccinations for employees of companies with at least 100 workers, although it exempts those who work at home or exclusively outdoors.

Georgia M. Pestana, New York City’s corporation counsel, said at a news conference on Monday that the city’s health commissioner clearly has the legal authority to issue a mandate to protect New Yorkers during a health crisis. She argued that the legal questions over the Biden administration’s mandate were different and centered on whether OSHA had the proper authority.

Kathryn Wylde, the president of a prominent business group, the Partnership for New York City, said she was surprised by the announcement by Mr. de Blasio.

“We were blindsided,” she said. “There’s no forewarning, no discussion, no idea about whether it’s legal or who he expects to enforce it.”

Roughly half of Manhattan office employers have enacted vaccine mandates, she said, though some policies include testing options and medical and religious exemptions.

Many questions remain about the Omicron variant. Some early signs exist that it may cause only mild illness, though that observation was based mainly on cases in South Africa among young people, who are generally less likely to become severely ill from Covid. Scientists are also waiting to see whether cases lead to substantial hospitalizations and deaths; both are lagging indicators.

And at the moment, scientists say there is no reason to believe Omicron is impervious to existing vaccines, although they may turn out to be less protective to some unknown degree.

Grace Ashford contributed reporting.

Eric Adams, New York’s mayor-elect, does not commit to the new vaccine mandate for private employers.

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Eric Adams visited a mobile Covid-19 vaccine clinic in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, in October.Credit...Andrew Seng for The New York Times

In his parting shot against the coronavirus, the outgoing mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, mandated on Monday that all private employers in the city require their staff to be vaccinated by Dec. 27. But it is unclear how long that new mandate will remain in force.

In less than a month, Eric Adams will succeed Mr. de Blasio as mayor, and on Monday Mr. Adams declined to commit to enforcing the new rules, which are intended to stem the spread of the virus, especially the new Omicron variant.

“The mayor-elect will evaluate this mandate and other Covid strategies when he is in office and make determinations based on science, efficacy and the advice of health professionals,” said Evan Thies, a spokesman for Mr. Adams.

Mr. Adams, who says he is fully vaccinated and has received a booster shot, has been vague about some of Mr. de Blasio’s other pandemic measures.

During a Nov. 3 appearance on MSNBC, Mr. Adams suggested that he was open to revisiting some aspects of the outgoing mayor’s mandates for city employees.

“We need to revisit how we are going to address the vaccine mandates,” he said.

Two days later, Mr. Adams was less equivocal about Mr. de Blasio’s requirement that public indoor venues like theaters and restaurants deny entry to unvaccinated adults. The rule prompted the N.B.A. to bar a star for the Brooklyn Nets, Kyrie Irving, from playing in games held in the city.

“New York City’s not going to change their rule,” Mr. Adams said about public indoor venues during an appearance on CNN.

Mr. de Blasio on Monday said he had twice briefed Mr. Adams on his plans, before and during the mayor-elect’s ongoing trip to Ghana, and expressed confidence that Mr. Adams would make wise public health decisions.

“He has been tremendously clear that he respects the health care professionals and their guidance,” Mr. de Blasio said.

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Some business owners in Manhattan react to N.Y.C.’s vaccine mandate with shrugs.

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A Covid-19 vaccination site in New York's Times Square on Monday. Credit...Mary Altaffer/Associated Press

As businesses across New York City grappled on Monday with Mayor Bill de Blasio’s new mandate that all private employers soon require their workers to be vaccinated, the consensus in one neighborhood seemed to be support for the requirement but skepticism about enforcement.

“It just seems logical, but I think the pushback will be huge,” said Andy Churchill, the brand director of Canine Styles, a pet grooming salon on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

At Canine Styles, Mr. Churchill said, the owner required all employees to be vaccinated as soon as they were eligible. He said that no one resisted, but that he was not sure if other businesses would have such an easy time.

Under New York City’s new mandate for private employers, employees who work in-person at private companies must have one dose of the vaccine by Dec. 27. Remote workers will not be required to get the vaccine. There is no testing option as an alternative.

Charlie Fernandez, general manager of Harry’s Shoes on the Upper West Side, said the vast majority of the store’s employees had gotten vaccinated. One or two chose to do weekly testing instead.

“If you want to increase business, you need to have everybody vaccinated,” Mr. Fernandez said.

He said he didn’t know how officials would monitor compliance.

Charlie Rath, a sales associate at the wine store Pour, wondered if the city was going to send workers around to every business and ask every employee to show proof of vaccination. He also questioned the rationale of a vaccine mandate for employees of private businesses but not the customers who frequent them.

Andrew Rigie, the executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, a trade group for the city’s restaurant industry, called on Mr. de Blasio to delay the requirement until 2022 because it could be difficult for some people to comply.

“Public health and safety is paramount, but Mayor de Blasio’s announced expansions to the Key to NYC vaccine mandate pose additional challenges for an already beleaguered restaurant industry in need of tourism support and revenues this holiday season,” Mr. Rigie said. “U.S. families visiting New York City for scheduled holiday vacations may not be able to meet the vaccination requirements for children or themselves in time, and children aged 5-11 across the globe aren’t universally authorized to get vaccinated.”

Lincoln Neto, the manager of Basics Plus Hardware and Houseware on the Upper West Side, said that all nine of his employees were vaccinated and that “if it was up to me, I would say you need to get vaccinated, and if not, then unfortunately I have to let you go.” But he said he had mixed feelings about a citywide mandate because he believed the decision should be left up to individual business owners.

Mr. Churchill of Canine Styles also questioned the mayor’s decision to put the mandate into effect just days before handing the office over to Eric Adams.

“I think it’s de Blasio’s last-ditch effort to go out with a bang,” he said.

Texas becomes the 19th state to detect the Omicron variant.

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A coronavirus vaccine in Houston in October.Credit...Callaghan O'Hare/Reuters

At least 19 states have found the Omicron variant as it spreads rapidly throughout the United States, with Texas on Monday becoming the latest.

The Texas health authorities said in a statement that a woman in Harris County, which includes the Houston area, tested positive for Covid-19 and was found to have the Omicron variant.

“Given how quickly Omicron spread in southern Africa, we’re not surprised that it showed up here,” Dr. John Hellerstedt, the commissioner of the state’s Department of State Health Services, said in the statement.

It was not clear where the woman contracted the virus or when she tested positive. The department did not respond to requests for comment on Monday night.

Texas has now joined 18 other states that have detected the variant since Dec. 1, when the country’s first Omicron case was identified in California.

The other states are Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.

On Nov. 26, the World Health Organization named the Omicron variant, which was first detected in southern Africa, a new variant of concern.

Public health officials have said that they expected the new form of the virus to quickly find its way to the United States, despite the country’s imposition of a travel ban on international travelers from eight southern African nations, a move several other countries have also taken.

Many questions remain about the variant. There are some early indications that it may cause only mild illness, though that observation was based mainly on cases in South Africa among young people, who are generally less likely to become severely ill from Covid. Scientists are also waiting to see whether cases lead to substantial hospitalizations and deaths; both often lag surges in infections by days or weeks.

Available vaccines may still offer substantial protection against severe illness and death following infection with the variant, and federal officials are calling on vaccinated people to get booster shots.

Jesus Jiménez contributed reporting.

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A former aide says Trump’s blood oxygen level was dangerously low when he was fighting coronavirus.

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Mr. Trump arrived at Walter Reed on Oct. 2, 2020.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Donald J. Trump’s blood oxygen level sank to a precariously low level after he announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus last year, according to a new book by Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff.

The new details contradict Mr. Trump’s denials this year that his Covid bout was more dire than White House medical officials had acknowledged at the time.

Mr. Meadows’s book, titled “The Chief’s Chief,” goes on sale on Tuesday. He describes his tenure in the White House, alternately promoting Mr. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him and attacking the news media. Mr. Meadows also revealed previously undisclosed details about the former president’s medical condition in October 2020.

Mr. Trump, who has long been fearful of appearing weak, has tried to camouflage those details. The White House staff and members of his medical team aided that effort, publicly downplaying how sick he was at the time. The former president denied a detailed New York Times report this year that he was more ill than his aides had revealed, with depressed oxygen levels and lung infiltrates, which occur when they are inflamed and filled with fluid or bacteria.

Mr. Meadows recounts in extraordinary detail how severe Mr. Trump’s illness was.

On Friday, Oct. 2, 2020, hours after the president announced on Twitter that he had tested positive for the virus, he recorded a blood oxygen level of about 86 percent, Mr. Meadows wrote. That is roughly 10 points below what would be considered normal. Most healthy people have a blood oxygen level of about 95 to 98 percent, although some people may have lower normal readings.

Mr. Trump’s health had deteriorated so much that day that members of his medical team feared they would not be able to treat him adequately without immediate attention from hospital staff, Mr. Meadows wrote.

Early reports suggest Omicron is fast moving but perhaps less severe.

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Waiting for a vaccination at a government clinic in Johannesburg.Credit...Kim Ludbrook/EPA, via Shutterstock

JOHANNESBURG — The Covid-19 virus is spreading faster than ever in South Africa, the country’s president said Monday, an indication of how the new Omicron variant is driving the pandemic, but there are early indications that Omicron may cause less serious illness than other forms of the virus.

Researchers at a major hospital complex in Pretoria reported that their patients with the coronavirus are much less sick than those they have treated before, and that other hospitals are seeing the same trends. In fact, they said, most of their infected patients were admitted for other reasons and have no Covid symptoms.

But scientists cautioned against placing too much stock in either the potential good news of less severity, or bad news like early evidence that prior coronavirus infection offers little immunity to Omicron. The variant was discovered just last month, and more study is needed before experts can say much about it with confidence.

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Global Roundup

France closes nightclubs for four weeks, but rejects adding other major restrictions.

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Prime Minister Jean Castex of France and the country’s health minister, Olivier Veran, spoke to reporters on Monday about pandemic measures.Credit...Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse, via Pool/Afp Via Getty Images

France is closing nightclubs in the country for four weeks and tightening some Covid-19 rules in primary schools, mostly around masks, officials said on Monday. But they announced few other restrictions, and continue to hope that booster shots and better social distancing will be enough to stem a recent surge in coronavirus cases.

Prime Minister Jean Castex and Health Minister Olivier Véran said at a news conference Monday evening that children aged 5 to 11 who have certain health conditions would be eligible for vaccination, and that people 65 and older could get booster shots anywhere without an appointment.

The government explained the decision to close nightclubs by saying that a large share of new infections were in young people, and that it was difficult to wear masks in clubs.

But, mindful of pandemic weariness less than five months before a presidential election, French leaders are mostly bucking the recent European trend toward tighter restrictions.

“The time is not for gauges, curfews or lockdowns — that would be disproportionate,” Mr. Castex said. “However, the circumstances require an individual and collective effort to ensure everyone limits risks of contamination.”

Mr. Castex urged companies to let employees work from home as much as possible, and encouraged people to limit end-of-year social interactions like Christmas parties.

France did not move up the start of December school holidays by a week, as Belgium did, nor has France shown any willingness to make vaccination mandatory or impose restrictions on the unvaccinated, as Germany and Italy have done.

Reports of new coronavirus cases in France are climbing to near 43,000 a day. More than 12,000 Covid-19 patients are currently hospitalized in France, the most since August, and hospitals around the country are being strained.

Here are other developments around the world.

  • Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health announced the country’s first confirmed case of the Omicron variant, a 35-year-old U.S. citizen who had been living in Spain and received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in June. Dr. Suphakit Sirilak, director general of the Department of Medical Sciences, told reporters that the man was first tested positive on Nov. 30, and that sequencing of a follow-up test specimen taken on Dec. 3 confirmed that he had Omicron.

  • Officials in Russia announced that they, too, had confirmed Omicron infections there for the first time. According to Rospotrebnadzor, the agency that runs the country’s Central Research Institute of Epidemiology, 10 citizens who recently returned from South Africa tested positive for the virus, and the Omicron variant was found in two of them.

Europe is on edge as Omicron cases rise quickly before the holidays.

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Shoppers on Oxford Street in London on Sunday. Britain has reported 246 cases and counting of the Omicron coronavirus variant. Credit...Henry Nicholls/Reuters

LONDON — Confirmed cases of the Omicron variant surged in Britain and Denmark on Sunday, backing up scientists’ fears that it has already spread more widely despite travel bans and adding to worries of new lockdowns before the holidays.

Global coronavirus cases by region

This chart shows how reported cases per capita have changed in different parts of the world.

  • Africa
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • Middle East
  • U.S. and Canada
Feb. 2020
Sept.
Apr. 2021
Nov.
Jun. 2022
Jan. 2023
100 cases
200 cases per 100,000
Sources: Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and state and local health agencies (cases); World Bank and U.S. Census Bureau (population data).

On Sunday, Britain’s health security agency confirmed that it had now detected 246 cases of the variant — nearly double the total number of cases reported on Friday. In Denmark, the local health authorities confirmed that there were 183 known cases of the variant, more than triple the total number of suspected cases reported on Friday, and called the figures “worrying.”

The numbers are skewed somewhat because both countries are widely seen as leaders in genomic sequencing and testing, so they are finding the variant in part because they are looking so carefully for it. And in Britain, scientists are focusing much of their genomic sequencing on international travelers and on contacts of those already infected with the Omicron variant — two groups more likely to have been exposed.

Still, the announcements make clear that the number of Omicron cases is rising quickly. What that might mean for public health remains less clear.

Michael Ryan, the head of the emergencies program at the World Health Organization, speaking last week at a news conference, said European countries should have taken more precautions this autumn to protect their populations.

“We will have to be a little patient in order to understand the implications of the Omicron variant,” he said, “but, certainly we are dealing with a crisis now. And that crisis is in Europe, and it is being driven by the Delta variant.”

Now, he said, it is time for “everyone to recommit ourselves to controlling the pandemic of multiple strains or multiple variants of the same virus.”

Many questions remain about the Omicron variant. Some early signs exist that it may cause only mild illness, though that observation was based mainly on cases in South Africa among young people, who are generally less likely to become severely ill from Covid. Scientists are also waiting to see whether cases lead to substantial hospitalizations and deaths; both are lagging indicators.

And at the moment, scientists say there is no reason to believe Omicron is impervious to existing vaccines, although they may turn out to be less protective to some unknown degree.

Emily Anthes, Thomas Erdbrink, Jasmina Nielsen and Holly Secon contributed reporting.

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