WSWS (2021-11-27). Omicron variant threatens to unleash new global surge of COVID-19 pandemic. wsws.org Initial indications are that an unusual constellation of mutations makes the variant far more infectious than the Delta variant and potentially vaccine-resistant.

WSWS (2021-11-27). COVID-19 must be eradicated to stop dangerous new variants. wsws.org The emergence of the Omicron strain of COVID-19 is a devastating exposure of the herd immunity policy implemented by capitalist governments, which oppose lockdowns and other critical public health measures necessary to stop the spread of the disease.

TASS (2021-11-27). Several weeks needed to assess vaccines' efficacy against new COVID variant – WHO. tass.com Later today, the WHO will announce whether the variant will be classified as one of interest or of concern…

TASS (2021-11-27). World Health Organization: PCR tests able to detect new SARS-CoV-2 variant 'Omicron'. tass.com Several labs have indicated that for one widely used PCR test, one of the three target genes is not detected, said in a statement…

TASS (2021-11-27). US company Moderna begins work on vaccine against new SARS-CoV-2 variant 'Omicron'. tass.com Data is expected in the coming weeks, the statement noted…

sputniknews (2021-11-27). Omicron: Indian Politicians Urge PM Modi to Ban Flights From Affected Countries Amid COVID Scare. sputniknews.com The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday named the new strain of coronavirus "B.1.1.529", Omicron. The latter has been classified as a "variant of concern", posing a greater risk than the globally dominant Delta variant.

sputniknews (2021-11-27). Health Agency: New COVID Strain Poses 'High to Very High Risk' to Europe. sputniknews.com The new variant was initially reported in South Africa and Botswana, and in Europe, Belgium was the first to detect it.

Richard Lane (2021-11-27). [Perspectives] Pascale Ondoa: strengthening laboratory medicine in Africa. thelancet.com "Our core aim is to build laboratory systems to address the health agenda as defined by Africa", says Pascale Ondoa, who for the past 5 years has been Director of Science and New Initiatives at the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM). Part of this role is to direct technical advice and provide leadership to help shape health strategy and laboratory medicine improvement at the country level. "A lot of our work involves the coordination of partners and experts, so that investments from agencies like PEPFAR, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Fleming Fund, and others generate sub…

WSWS (2021-11-27). Charité intensive—Station 43: An unsettling documentary about the reality of the coronavirus. wsws.org The true horror of the deadly pandemic is visible "on the faces of the patients, their children and life partners. And it is reflected in the eyes of the medical staff."

Branko Marcetic (2021-11-27). Cuba's Vaccine Could End Up Saving Millions of Lives. zcomm.org Thanks to its public biotech sector and its government's deep commitment to public health, Cuba is now the only low-income country to have made its own COVID vaccine, and it's poised to help millions around the world…

Coral Wynter (2021-11-27). 'Vaxxers': The inside story of AstraZeneca. greenleft.org.au Usually a vaccine takes 5—10 years from conception to production and injection into people's arms. Vaxxers, writes Coral Wynter, describes how a safe vaccine against COVID-19 was produced in only 10 months.

Peter Koenig (2021-11-27). Austria: First Western Country to "Legally" Impose "Vaccination" on Her Population. dissidentvoice.org Austria announced a few days ago that it will go into a total lockdown for at least 2 weeks and a maximum of 20 days. Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg added that "there will be a legal requirement to get vaccinated from 1 February 2022." This and more was reported by BBC, and as we know, BBC …

WSWS (2021-11-27). Expert Nicolas Smit gives testimony on US masking policies under Trump and Biden. wsws.org In a sweeping report, Smit reviews US masking policies during the pandemic and makes clear which types of masks can prevent airborne transmission.

Fight Back (2021-11-27). Connecticut protest to stop evictions. fightbacknews.org Hartford, CT – On November 20, a dozen protesters rallied in front of the Hartford Supreme Court building to protest the mass evictions happening across Connecticut. The protest centered around Governor Ned Lamont's inability to protect renters from evictions during the ongoing pandemic. There is a new bill requiring landlords to provide tenants with 30 days' removal notice, being disguised as a continuation of the stay on evictions. Other issues included cancelling rent payments and investing in the community instead of police. "Cancel the rents, evictions must end," chanted the protesters. | "The main message w…

Jallicia Jolly (2021-11-27). [Perspectives] A reproductive justice response to HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. thelancet.com Lana is a young Black woman living with HIV in Kingston, Jamaica. A mother of young children, she was concerned about what COVID-19 would mean for her pre-existing diagnosis. During the COVID-19 pandemic she has struggled to find psychosocial support groups, consistent access to antiretrovirals, and employment opportunities to maintain her health and support herself and her family. Pam, a middle-aged HIV-positive woman in Detroit, MI, USA, is a caregiver and local HIV organiser who provides emotional and social support to other newly diagnosed people.

John Zarocostas (2021-11-27). [World Report] Countries prepare for pandemic treaty decision. thelancet.com Health diplomats are negotiating over whether to craft a pandemic accord ahead of a Special Session of the World Health Assembly. John Zarocostas reports from Geneva, Switzerland.

Dave Holmes (2021-11-27). COVID-19 pandemic shines harsh light on privatisation & outsourcing. greenleft.org.au Australia's response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been shaped by the basic realities of contemporary capitalism and neoliberalism, argues Dave Holmes.

Richard Horton (2021-11-27). [Comment] Offline: The real meaning of decolonisation. thelancet.com The most dangerous threat to health and health equity today is anti-globalism—a denial of evidence pointing to the intrinsic interdependence of human beings; a refusal to accept the transnational nature of risks to our wellbeing; and an antipathy to institutions and individuals promoting cosmopolitan values. Anti-globalism lies behind the failure of governments to accelerate actions to address the climate crisis, is responsible for the failure of nations to coordinate their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and underlies the savage xenophobia directed towards those fleeing conflict and repression.

Andrea Germanos (2021-11-27). Pandemic Response Report Denounces Leaving Global Health 'Hostage' to Big Pharma. zcomm.org "If this pandemic cannot catalyze real change, what will?"

TASS (2021-11-27). New B.1.1.529 COVID-19 variant causes no severe diseases – health minister. tass.com Joe Phaahla mentioned that it was too early to say how the new COVID-19 variant would behave…

Prof Michel Chossudovsky (2021-11-27). Ciencia falsa, datos no válidos: No existe un "caso confirmado de COVID-19". No hay pandemia. globalizacion.ca "El PCR es un proceso. No te dice que estás enfermo ". | El Dr. Kary Mullis , premio Nobel e inventor del RT- PCR, falleció en agosto de 2019. | "… Todos o una parte sustancial de estos positivos podrían deberse…

Yap Boum (2021-11-27). [Correspondence] Beyond COVID-19: scaling up and sustaining mobile health in Africa. thelancet.com In their Perspective,1 N Hélène Sawadogo and colleagues highlight the challenges of mobile health care in Africa with the MOS@N project, which provided medical support to pregnant women but ran out of funding 3 years into operation. Securing longer-term funding to sustain mobile health is a challenge in Africa.2 Social innovations such as BIMA (Ghana), AccesAfya (Kenya), Idocta (Cameroon), and Healthforce (South Africa) use telemedicine to improve access to quality health care but have not managed to scale up.

WSWS (2021-11-27). Michigan COVID-19 wave escalates as Democrats reject measures to halt the spread. wsws.org The Democratic administration of Governor Whitmer has responded to unprecedented case numbers with a thoroughly inadequate public health advisory.

teleSUR, yart, DRL, JDO (2021-11-27). Cuba mantiene cero muertes por Covid-19 y amplía la vacunación. telesurtv.net Mientras avanza la campaña de vacunación, no se han reportado muertes en dos días consecutivos.

Ioannis Katsoularis, Osvaldo Fonseca-Rodríguez, Paddy Farrington, Krister Lindmark, Anne-Marie Fors Connolly (2021-11-27). [Correspondence] COVID-19 and myocardial infarction — Authors' reply. thelancet.com We thank Daniel Caldeira and Fausto Pinto for their comments regarding our study1 focusing on COVID-19 and myocardial infarction. We did acknowledge the difficulties in distinguishing between different types of myocardial injuries in the discussion. The International Classification of Diseases versions 9 and 10 unfortunately do not distinguish between ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI), which is a limitation of our study.

Andrew Green (2021-11-27). [Perspectives] A history of US engagement in the HIV/AIDS response. thelancet.com >In late September, 2021, US President Joe Biden tapped John Nkengasong to lead the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). If approved for the role as Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator of US Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS Globally, Nkengasong will inherit a programme at a point of inflection. PEPFAR has been leaderless since Deborah Birx decamped in February, 2020, to coordinate the White House's COVID-19 response under the administration of Donald Trump. She left PEPFAR ahead of the findings from UNAIDS in July, 2020, that highlighted uneven progress towards 2020 milestones in the…

N Hélène Sawadogo, Hamidou Sanou, Jeremy A Greene, Vincent Duclos (2021-11-27). [Correspondence] Beyond COVID-19: scaling up and sustaining mobile health in Africa — Authors' reply. thelancet.com We thank Yap Boum for taking the time to respond to our Perspective.1…

Daniel Caldeira, Fausto J Pinto (2021-11-27). [Correspondence] COVID-19 and myocardial infarction. thelancet.com Ioannis Katsoularis and colleagues1 found that COVID-19 is a risk factor for myocardial infarction and stroke through self-controlled case series evaluation, a method that has been used to establish the risk of myocardial infarction associated with influenza infection.2,3 Regarding myocardial infarction, as the investigators recognised, one of the possible limitations of this research is the inaccurate diagnosis and codification of myocardial injury or myocarditis as myocardial infarction, particularly because the current myocardial infarction definition (and diagnostic methods) differ from the definition at the…

WSWS (2021-11-27). New York State Assembly releases Cuomo impeachment report. wsws.org The report fails even to mention the role that Cuomo played in legislation that protected the owners of nursing homes and hospitals from liability in COVID deaths.

WSWS (2021-11-27). COVID-19 cases surge to record highs in South Korea. wsws.org As the number of new cases grows, inequality is also sharply escalating.

Kathy Smith, William Brooks, Jean Challiner, Enid Povey (2021-11-27). [Correspondence] Quality assurance of remote clinical assessments in the NHS. thelancet.com COVID-19 has accelerated the proportion of digital patient consultations across community and hospital settings, bringing both challenge and opportunity to health-care organisations and their staff. Within our own work, one such opportunity was the increased ability to record and review consultation audio, benefiting not just organisational quality assurance and complaint and incident investigation but also providing meaningful feedback to support clinicians' continuous professional development.

Staff (2021-11-27). Conferencia Iberoamericana: Canciller cubano agradece reclamo al cese del bloqueo. cubadebate.cu Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla agradeció la tradicional posición de los países miembros de la Conferencia Iberoamericana en el reclamo al cese del bloqueo económico, comercial y financiero impuesto por Estados Unidos. Recordó que esta política se ha recrudecido de manera deliberada y oportunista en el contexto de la pandemia de COVID-19.

Philip Landrigan, Philippe Grandjean (2021-11-27). [Correspondence] Pollution and the developing brain. thelancet.com The Editorial about the social determinants of brain health1 does a superb job of pointing out the powerful association between social disadvantage—poverty, childhood adversity, and violence—and mental disorders. It argues cogently that there is need for psychopharmacologically oriented psychiatric practitioners to join forces with epidemiologists and sociologists to seek holistic approaches to the prevention and treatment of mental illness. Well said!

WSWS (2021-11-27). Nursing staff in Germany on strike during contract negotiations for public sector workers. wsws.org There is now a shortage of at least 100,000 nurses in German hospitals, and more and more nurses are suffering burn-out—under conditions where infection rates are exploding.

Staff (2021-11-26). The ABCs of Covid: What you need to know about each 'strain of concern'. rt.com Scientists warn that a new coronavirus variant, dubbed Omicron, has the makings of a "super-contagious" virus. Here's a quick look at how we got here, and how the new variant name came about. | Previous viral outbreaks in history ended up being called after the country where they were first detected — for example, the "Spanish flu" that decimated the world in the aftermath of the First World War, a century ago. From the very beginning of the current pandemic, however, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been cautious to avoid such labeling. The virus itself was designated SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Resp…

Staff (2021-11-26). Not 'Nu': WHO officially names new Covid 'variant of concern' Omicron. rt.com The World Health Organization (WHO) has named the new Covid-19 variant first detected in southern Africa "Omicron", the UN health agency said after a meeting on Friday. | The global health agency met on Friday to name the B.1.1.529 strain and decided to classify it as a "variant of concern," rather than the less serious designation "variant of interest." | Following the meeting of the We call for increased surveillance and genetic testing & thank üá&…

Staff (2021-11-26). OMS clasifica como "de preocupación" nueva variante del SARS-CoV-2 y la denomina omicron. cubadebate.cu La OMS clasificó este viernes como "de preocupación" la variante B.1.1.529 del SARS-CoV-2, detectada recientemente en Sudáfrica, y alertó que puede propagarse más rápidamente que otras. Se necesitarán varias semanas para saber más sobre la nueva variante, su transmisibilidad y la eficacia de las vacunas y terapias frente a ella.

Staff (2021-11-26). Only matter of time before 'worst-ever' Covid strain hits UK — genomics chief. rt.com The UK's Covid genomics chief, Professor Sharon Peacock, has warned that it's only a matter of time before the newly mutated "worst-ever" strain reaches the country, but that officials can buy some time to prepare. | Speaking to reporters on Friday, Peacock highlighted how the 'Omicron' variant is "likely to be transmitted into the UK at some point" due to the virulent nature of the strain. | "I think buying time is important and it's worthwhile, because we can find out what we need to know about that particular variant," Peacock said, urging officials to brace for its arrival on British shores. | Read more…

WSWS (2021-11-26). Live updates: WHO officially designates new COVID-19 strain "variant of concern" wsws.org Scientists have detected a new variant of COVID-19, called B.1.1.529 (or Omicron), which appears to have originated in South Africa but has already been detected in several other countries.

WSWS (2021-11-26). Live updates: New COVID-19 variant detected in South Africa and internationally. wsws.org Scientists have detected a new variant of COVID-19, called B.1.1.529 (or Nu), which appears to have originated in South Africa but has already been detected in several other countries.

MEE, agencies (2021-11-26). New Covid variant: Israel detects case of strain first discovered in South Africa. middleeasteye.net New Covid variant: Israel detects case of strain first discovered in South Africa | The new variant found in South Africa has at least ten mutations, compared to two for Delta and three for Beta variants | Fri, 11/26/2021 – 10: 00 | Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held an emergency meeting with public health officials to discuss the Covid-19 situation (AFP) | Israel has detected a c…

imperial.ac.uk (2021-11-26). Imperial COVID-19 Response Team share new tool to assess threat of new variants. imperial.ac.uk Imperial's COVID-19 Response Team have developed a new tool to assess the threat of new variants in real-time.

Dana Sanchez (2021-11-26). New Covid Variant Spooks Global Stock And Crypto Markets, Flights Banned Out Of South Africa. moguldom.com The discovery of a new, fast-spreading coronavirus variant from Botswana caused flights to be banned with just hours of warning to the U.K., Israel, and a growing number of European countries from South Africa and five other Southern African countries. Stock and crypto markets were hit hard on news of the travel restrictions, with Bitcoin's …

Rosalind English (2021-11-26). Mandatory vaccination for care home workers not unlawful nor in breach of ECHR. ukhumanrightsblog.com Peters & Anor, R (On the application of) the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care & Anor [2021] EWHC 3182 (Admin), 2 November 2021 This was a renewed application by the claimants for permission to proceed with a judicial review challenge to the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) …

William rivers Pitt (2021-11-26). Whatever Passes for "Normal" Amid COVID Is About to Take Yet Another Hard Turn. zcomm.org And still the country remains only 59 percent vaccinated, even as all available data show how remarkably effective the vaccines are at protecting people from the worst elements of COVID.

WSWS (2021-11-26). Opponent of COVID-19 vaccine mandate arrested for bombing at Stellantis Windsor Assembly Plant. wsws.org The central question raised by recent events at the Windsor plant is: why has there been no sustained worker resistance to management's insistence that they toil in unsafe conditions during the pandemic, or its plans to cut a further 1,800 jobs?

Moderator (2021-11-26). Why I'm Not Rushing to Get My Six-Year-Old the COVID-19 VaccineÔøºÔøº. scheerpost.com [ By Len C. Goodman / As a father of a young child, I am pressured to get my daughter vaccinated for COVID-19. And like many Americans, I have concerns about giving my six-year-old a new vaccine that was not tested on humans until last year, and that has been approved only for "emergency use" in kids. The feverish hype by government officials, mainstream media outlets, and Big Pharma, and the systematic demonization and ce…

Andrea Germanos (2021-11-26). 130+ Global Groups Demand WTO Postpone Meeting Until Vital Patent Waiver Is Adopted. zcomm.org "The institution whose rules enforce vaccine apartheid is, unbelievably, attempting to have a meeting under conditions of vaccine apartheid, without having first resolved that apartheid by agreeing to the TRIPS waiver."

Prof Michel Chossudovsky (2021-11-26). Video: Has Justin Trudeau Been Duly Vaccinated? Registered Nurse Expresses Doubt on Authenticity of Trudeau's Vaccine Jab. globalresearch.ca First published …

Prof. Anthony J. Hall (2021-11-26). "Herd Stupidity": The Manufactured Covid Crisis, the Gene-based mRNA "Vaccine" and "The Pinnacles of Wealth and Power" globalresearch.ca