(Bloomberg) — Hong Kong will ban most unvaccinated people from restaurants, libraries and museums from next month and require all teachers and school staff to get shots as well, in a bid to boost the city’s lagging inoculation rate.
In mainland China, Zhengzhou became the second major city in Henan province to impose a partial lockdown this week as cases flared. Residents of Xi’an are starting to chafe at their curbs, and Eurasia Group warned that China’s zero-Covid policy will this year “fail to contain infections, leading to larger outbreaks, requiring in turn more severe lockdowns.”
In the U.S., a third shot of Pfizer Inc.’s vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds won emergency approval from regulators. The 2022 Grammy Awards are likely to be delayed because of the omicron variant, Billboard reported. Germany began weighing new measures as infections rise. Still a string of new studies indicate omicron may be less dangerous than other variants.
Key Developments:
- Virus Tracker: Cases pass 292 million; deaths exceed 5.4 million
- Vaccine Tracker: More than 9.2 billion shots administered
- Omicron’s mild infections hint at less-severe phase of pandemic
- Open streets reflect inequality in the U.S., study indicates
- How safe is flying as omicron surges: QuickTake
- Can omicron escape vaccines and boosters: Coronavirus Daily
Xi’an Residents Chafe at Lockdown (12:20 p.m. H.K.)
Almost two weeks of lockdown is starting to wear on the residents of Xi’an, the western city at the center of the longest outbreak of Covid-19 in China since the virus was first detected.
Shortages of food and medical care have worsened in the past 12 days since officials sealed off the city of 13 million people to stymie a flareup that has already led to more than 1,600 infections. More posts are starting to emerge on Chinese social media criticizing the government’s poor management and complaining that access to food is extremely limited.
The outbreak appears to have spread from Xi’an, which reported 95 new cases on Tuesday. The eastern province of Zhejiang and central province of Henan reported eight and five cases respectively, while another 21 asymptomatic infections were detected country-wide and counted separately.
Hong Kong Sets Vaccine Mandate (12:10 p.m. H.K.)
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced a vaccine requirement for restaurants and public leisure facilities will be imposed from February 24. That’s later than initially planned, with the government having delayed the start of the restrictions to after the Lunar New Year holidays, when families gather in homes and restaurants across the city.
Lam said the delay was necessary to allow businesses to prepare, and to give the city time to roll out vaccines to the roughly 1 million people who haven’t yet had a first dose. “We can’t possibly ask them to make all the required preparations within a very short time because they have to make big changes with their facilities,” she said of the catering sector.
Private workplaces and shopping malls are exempt from the mandate.
Delhi’s Chief Minister Tests Positive (12:05 p.m. H.K.)
Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s chief minister, tested positive with mild symptoms as a wave of infections continues to strengthen across the country. India confirmed 35 million infections on Tuesday, of which 1,892 were omicron. The south Asian nation reported 124 more deaths, taking the total tally of Covid-related fatalities to 482,017.
More than 9.9 million vaccines were administered in the last 24 hours, according to federal health ministry data. This included 4 million doses to teens aged between 15-18 years.
Goldman Says China Border Curbs May Stay (11:50 a.m.)
China may keep its border restrictions for the rest of the year as it prepares to host the Winter Olympics and a series of political events in 2022, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said.
Reports that vaccines made by domestic firm Sinovac Biotech Ltd. offer limited protection against the omicron variant will likely reinforce China’s resolve to stick with its Covid Zero strategy, analysts led by Andrew Tilton wrote in a note Tuesday.
Eurasia Sees Continued Covid Threat (10:55 a.m. H.K.)
Geopolitical risk consultancy Eurasia Group, assessing the biggest political risks in 2022, ranked “No Zero Covid” as the No. 1 threat, focusing on how China is facing an increasingly difficult battle to eliminate the virus’s more transmissible variants.
China’s zero-Covid policy looked “incredibly successful” in 2020 but now has “become a fight against a much more transmissible variant with broader lockdowns and vaccines with limited effectiveness,” Eurasia said in its report. “The population has virtually no antibodies against Omicron. Keeping the country locked down for two years has now made it more risky to open it back up.”
The initial success of the policy and President Xi Jinping’s attachment to it “makes it impossible to change course.”
The world’s second largest economy is still in the midst of an protracted whack-a-mole with the delta variant since it started its first domestic flareup in May 2021. The inactivated Covid vaccines developed by Chinese companies Sinovac and Sinopharm are found to stimulate little or no protective antibodies against the immunity-evading omicron variant.
Grammy’s May Be Delayed Again (9:00 a.m. H.K.)
The 2022 Grammy Awards set for Jan. 31 are likely to be delayed, Billboard reported, citing multiple unidentified people. This would be the second year in a row that the Grammys have been postponed due to the pandemic.
China’s Zhengzhou Sets Partial Lockdown (8:55 a.m. H.K.)
Zhengzhou, capital city of central province of Henan, locked down some neighborhoods in two districts from Tuesday after two Covid infections were reported Monday.
Henan reported a total of 24 local Covid infections Monday, and the province’s Yuzhou, a city of 1.3 million people, earlier this week barred people from leaving the city and put downtown districts in lockdown.
Tokyo, Okinawa Cases Rise (8:45 a.m. H.K.)
Japan’s capital found 103 new coronavirus cases on Monday, the most in nearly three months according to data from the Tokyo government.
The number of serious cases remained at one. But the seven-day average case load figure rose to 75.7, nearly doubling from the previous week.
In the southern prefecture of Okinawa, 130 cases were reported Monday, the highest since late September, according to Fuji News Network. In the Japanese capital, a cluster of 11 cases was found at the Tokyo Daijingu shrine, the broadcaster also reported.
Omicron May Be Less Dangerous Variant (8:15 a.m. H.K.)
A string of new studies have confirmed that even as case numbers hit records due to the omicron variant, the numbers of severe cases and hospitalizations have not.
“We’re now in a totally different phase,” said Monica Gandhi, an immunologist at the University of California, San Francisco. “The virus is always going to be with us, but my hope is this variant causes so much immunity that it will quell the pandemic.”
While experts caution that they still need more data, one study from South Africa found that patients admitted to the hospital there during the omicron-dominated fourth wave of the virus were 73% less likely to have severe disease than patients admitted during the delta-dominated third wave.
N.J. Projects Record Hospitalizations (3:15 p.m. NY)
New Jersey is expected to peak on Jan. 14 with a record 9,000 people hospitalized, according to state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli. That would be about 1,000 more than the previous high, reached in April 2020.
The state has 4,715 hospitalizations related to Covid-19, the most since May 2020. Children’s admissions reached 102, almost double from a week ago.
U.S. Capitol Sees ‘Explosive’ Case Growth (3:01 p.m. NY)
The U.S. Capitol has registered “explosive” growth in infections, with more than 13% of tests coming back positive over a seven-day period, up from from less than 1%, Brian P. Monahan, the chief physician for Congress, told lawmakers.
Most of the Capitol cases were of people who had been vaccinated, and none resulted in serious complications or hospitalizations. Most were caused by the omicron variant.
NYC Mayor Considers Requiring Boosters (12:43 p.m. NY)
New York City might expand its vaccine mandates in April to require booster shots, Mayor Eric Adams said on Bloomberg TV.
Public-sector employees in the city are required to be fully vaccinated. A private-sector mandate went into effect Dec. 27, requiring employees to get a second dose within 45 days before they can enter their workplaces.
Adams said he has urged banks and other businesses to bring workers back to offices. “You can’t run New York City from home,” he said.
Outbreak Ends Cruise in Lisbon: Video (12:18 p.m.)
Starbucks Requires Vaccination or Testing (12:05 p.m. NY)
Starbucks will require U.S. employees to get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing by Feb. 9, in line with government standards for large employers. Workers must disclose their vaccination status by Jan. 10. The chain will require employees who choose not to vaccinate to pay for their own tests.
French Lawmakers Get Death Threats: BBC (11:47 a.m. NY)
Two French lawmakers said they received death threats as Parliament moves toward requiring proof of vaccination for access to public venues and transportation.
Agnès Firmin Le Bodo of the center-right Agir party tweeted an email she received with threats to kill her over her support for the vaccination pass. “Our democracy is in danger,” she wrote.
Dozens of Cruise Passengers Test Positive (11:39 a.m. NY)
Forty-five passengers tested positive on Italian cruise ship MSC Grandiosa, which arrived at Genoa, Italy, from Marseille, the MSC Crociere cruise line said by email. The patients isolated and were sent home while taking protective measures, the company said.
Pfizer Booster Cleared for Young Teens (10:20 a.m. NY)
U.S. regulators granted emergency-use authorization to give Pfizer Inc.’s booster shot to people age 12 to 15. The Food and Drug Administration also reduced the recommended interval to five months between the second and third doses of the messenger RNA vaccine, which was developed with BioNTech SE.
The agency said also that immune-compromised children age 5 to 11 could receive a third primary-series shot at least 28 days after their initial two-dose immunization.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expert panel is expected meet as soon as this week on the issue.
Johnson Warns Pandemic Not Over: BBC (8:49 a.m NY)
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the U.K. is in a much better position with the virus than last year but said it would be “absolute folly” to think the pandemic is almost over, the BBC reported.
France Bolsters Aid to Tourism Firms (8:04 a.m NY)
The French government said it would ease access to crisis funds and could delay loan repayments for businesses struggling with a drop in activity as a surge in omicron cases hits tourism and leisure activities.
Such efforts have allowed the country “to relaunch economic activity very quickly and very strongly,” Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said after meeting with representatives of business groups.
Hong Kong Hunts for Six Diners in Cluster (6:20 a.m. NY)
Hong Kong is using several methods to find six diners who may have been exposed to the coronavirus, in its first cluster of local omicron infections.
Officials have identified 201 out of 207 patrons of the Moon Palace restaurant where a crew member from Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., who was subsequently found to be infected with omicron, was eating lunch with his family on Dec. 27.
Five other customers later tested positive, and 191 have been sent to a government-run quarantine center where they will be tested regularly.
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