The omicron variant of the coronavirus continued spreading in the United States and elsewhere Saturday, with some European governments tightening travel restrictions and taking other pandemic measures, and Rio de Janeiro canceling plans for New Year's Eve celebrations.
New York announced three more cases of omicron Saturday, bringing its total to eight. "The omicron variant is here, and as anticipated we are seeing the beginning of community spread," state Health Commissioner Mary Bassett said.
The number of states finding the variant is growing as well, with Massachusetts, Connecticut and Washington state announcing their first cases Saturday, a day after New Jersey, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Maryland reported their first confirmed cases. Missouri reported its first presumed case Friday.
The variant also has been detected in Nebraska, Minnesota, California, Hawaii, Colorado and Utah.
Britain tightened travel restrictions Saturday amid concerns about the spread of omicron, saying all travelers arriving in England will need to take covid-19 tests.
In Germany, outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel made another appeal for Germans to get vaccinated, while in the Netherlands and Austria thousands of people marched to protest their government's lockdown measures.
In Brazil, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro canceled plans for New Year's Eve celebrations on the advice of state officials who said reveling in crowds wasn't safe, as the first cases of the omicron variant were reported in the country.
"We respect science," Mayor Eduardo Paes wrote on his Twitter account Saturday. "The City Council says it can go ahead. The State says no. So it can't."
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In New York, seven of the eight cases there have been found in New York City, once a global epicenter of the pandemic, and the other is in Suffolk County.
The arrival of omicron comes as hospitals statewide continue to strain under a surge in coronavirus cases, most traced to the delta variant, along with staffing shortages. The number of people testing positive statewide each day has doubled in the past 30 days.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has authorized the Health Department to limit nonessential, nonurgent procedures at hospitals close to running out of beds and deployed National Guard teams to relieve health care workers at facilities dealing with staffing issues and surging caseloads.
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Much remains unknown about omicron, including whether it is more contagious, as some health authorities suspect, whether it can thwart vaccines and whether it makes people as sick as the original strain of coronavirus.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont reported Saturday his state's first confirmed case of the variant, saying it may also be linked to the New York City anime convention. The case involves a vaccinated Hartford-area man in his 60s who has a family member who attended the convention. The family member, who is also vaccinated, developed symptoms that have since resolved, Lamont's office said.
In Washington state, three cases of the omicron variant were confirmed Saturday -- one each in Thurston, Pierce and King counties, state health officials said. They noted that the investigation is still early, and details were not yet known about the travel histories of the patients, two men and a woman who range from 20-39 years old.
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A Massachusetts woman in her 20s who had traveled out of state is the first known case of the new variant that's been detected in her state, the Department of Public Health announced Saturday. The woman is fully vaccinated and has experienced mild symptoms.
A woman who recently traveled from South Africa became New Jersey's and Georgia's first confirmed case after seeking care for moderate symptoms at an emergency room. The fully vaccinated Georgia resident was in her home state for two days between arriving from South Africa and traveling on to New Jersey, health officials said.
Maryland's first three cases of the omicron variant were found in the Baltimore area and include two people from the same household, authorities said. One is a vaccinated person who recently traveled to South Africa. The third case was detected in a vaccinated person with no recent travel history.
In Pennsylvania, a man in his 30s from Philadelphia became that state's first case. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health did not say whether the man was vaccinated or if he had been traveling.
Missouri's presumed first case involves someone who recently traveled within the U.S., according to state health officials, who were awaiting confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
BRITISH TRAVEL RULES
In Britain, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said new travel rules will take effect Tuesday.
"In light of the most recent data, we are taking further action to slow the incursion of the omicron variant," he said in a tweet.
Javid also added Nigeria to the U.K.'s travel "red list," which means that arrivals from there will be banned except for U.K. and Irish residents, and those travelers must isolate in quarantine facilities. He said there was a "significant number" of omicron cases linked to travel from Nigeria, with 27 cases recorded in England.
Karen Dee, chief executive of the Airport Operators Association, said the new measures will be a "major deterrent" to travel, just as airports and the travel industry were hoping for a small uplift over the festive season.
MERKEL PLEA
Germany's Merkel delivered her video message two days after federal and state leaders there decided on a series of measures meant to break a wave of infections.
The measures include excluding unvaccinated people across the country from nonessential stores, restaurants, and sports and cultural venues. In a longer-term move, parliament will consider a general vaccination mandate.
Another 378 deaths in 24 hours raised Germany's total in the pandemic to 102,946.
"Every one of them leaves behind families or friends, stunned, speechless and helpless," Merkel said. " With the effective and safe vaccines, we have the key to this in our hands."
She renewed a plea to Germans to take the virus seriously, adding that the omicron variant "appears to be even more contagious than the previous ones."
"Get vaccinated, no matter whether it's a first vaccination or a booster," Merkel said. "Every vaccination helps."
Germany's incoming chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said his government's "most important first task" is to "fight the corona pandemic with all the strength that we have."
"There would be a different situation now if just a few more citizens had also made the decision to get vaccination," he said. "We must again make a whole new effort, set in motion a whole new campaign" to get more shots in arms, Scholz said.
DUTCH MARCHES
Holding balloons, umbrellas and banners, including ones that read: "It's not right," Dutch protesters watched by a large police presence moved from a park into the city center without incident Saturday.
The Dutch government imposed a partial lockdown three weeks ago and tightened it a week ago as infections remained the highest since the start of the pandemic. Among the measures, all bars, restaurants and other public venues including stores selling nonessential goods have to close at 5 p.m.
Meanwhile, the Dutch public health institute said Saturday that 18 passengers who flew back to the Netherlands from South Africa just over a week ago tested positive for the omicron variant but had either mild or no symptoms
More than 600 passengers arrived from South Africa on Nov. 26 just ahead of the Dutch government's ban on flights from southern Africa.
AUSTRIA PROTESTS
In Austria, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Vienna on Saturday, the second weekend of protesting over the government's decision to impose a tough new lockdown and plan a sweeping nationwide vaccine mandate.
The crowd was over 40,000 strong, Vienna police said in a tweet, and around 1,500 people staged counterprotests. The demonstration was largely peaceful, but police reported that some protesters threw pyrotechnic objects. There were some arrests, and police said they used pepper spray to try to disperse the crowds.
The far-right Freedom Party, the third-largest group in Parliament, has led the opposition to the new pandemic measures. The party has amplified conspiracy theories about the vaccines, spreading doubt about their effectiveness.
EARLY RESEARCH
Early hypotheses are that the omicron variant is likely to evade the protections of vaccines to at least some extent, but that it is unlikely to cause more severe illness than previous versions of the coronavirus. So far those hypotheses are in line with real-world observations from places such as South Africa, where infections have included the vaccinated and previously ill but so far appear largely mild.
Research data, however, is limited, so much current evidence has come from computer modeling and comparing omicron's physical structure with past variants.
A lot remains a mystery about omicron, which has more than twice the number of mutations as the delta variant, with the bulk found in the spike, the crown-like protein on the surface of the virus that vaccines train human bodies to attack.
The appearance of such a highly mutated virus nearly two years into the pandemic caught the scientific community by surprise, as many had hypothesized that the ultra-contagious delta variant might mark the last major wave, peaking and then eventually burning out, much like the 1918 influenza pandemic did.
Charles Chiu, a microbiologist at the University of California, San Francisco whose lab sequenced the first-known U.S. case of omicron, said he was in the camp of scientists who suspected the delta variant was the beginning of the end of the pandemic.
"I was surprised by omicron," he said. "This is a virus that has constantly surprised us."
It will take scientists weeks of laboratory testing and study to untangle exactly what omicron's mutations mean, and definitively nail down details about how much more contagious it is and what the implications are for those who get infected.
Even if omicron doesn't result in more severe infections for most people, Chiu said, an uptick in cases would result in more hospitalizations and deaths simply because of the number of infections. And as long as there are large numbers of unvaccinated people around the world, the virus will keep spreading and mutating.
Omicron also presents further proof that the virus is highly adaptable, and may be difficult to ever eradicate. Public-health policy may need to shift away from the goal of trying to eliminate the virus through vaccination to instead focus on preventing severe disease, Chiu said.
"It's very possible this virus is here to stay," he said.
GENETIC MATERIAL
According to a new preliminary study, the omicron variant is likely to have picked up genetic material from another virus that causes the common cold in humans -- prompting one of the study's authors to suggest that omicron could have greater transmissibility but lower virulence than other variants.
Researchers from Nference, a Cambridge, Mass.-based firm that analyzes biomedical information, sequenced omicron and found a snippet of genetic code that is also present in a virus that can bring about a cold.
They say this particular mutation could have occurred in a host simultaneously infected by the novel coronavirus and the virus that can cause the common cold. The shared genetic code has not been detected in other coronavirus variants, the scientists said.
The study is in preprint and has not been peer-reviewed.
The "striking" similarity between the viruses could have made omicron "more accustomed to human hosts" and likely to evade some immune system responses, said Venky Soundararajan, a biological engineer who co-wrote the study.
"By virtue of omicron adopting this insertion ... it is essentially taking a leaf out of the seasonal coronaviruses' page, which [explains] ... how it lives and transmits more efficiently with human beings," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Carolyn Thompson, Steve LeBlanc, Aleksandar Furtula, Mike Corder and additional staff members of The Associated Press; by Kristen V. Brown of Bloomberg News (TNS); by Amy Cheng of The Washington Post; and by Isabella Grullon Paz of The New York Times.
A woman receives a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Swaminarayan School vaccination centre, in London, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021. Britain says it will offer all adults a booster dose of vaccine within two months to bolster the nation's immunity as the new omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads. New measures to combat variant came into force in England on Tuesday, with face coverings again compulsory in shops and on public transport. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Shoppers wear masks as they walk in Carnaby Street, in London, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021. Britain says it will offer all adults a booster dose of vaccine within two months to bolster the nation's immunity as the new omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads. New measures to combat variant came into force in England on Tuesday, with face coverings again compulsory in shops and on public transport. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A patient receives a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Swaminarayan School vaccination centre, in London, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021. Britain says it will offer all adults a booster dose of vaccine within two months to bolster the nation's immunity as the new omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads. New measures to combat variant came into force in England on Tuesday, with face coverings again compulsory in shops and on public transport. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A man dressed as Santa Claus gestures as people walk past, in London, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021. Britain says it will offer all adults a booster dose of vaccine within two months to bolster the nation's immunity as the new omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads. New measures to combat variant came into force in England on Tuesday, with face coverings again compulsory in shops and on public transport. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
People wear masks as they walk in Regent Street, in London, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021. Britain says it will offer all adults a booster dose of vaccine within two months to bolster the nation's immunity as the new omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads. New measures to combat variant came into force in England on Tuesday, with face coverings again compulsory in shops and on public transport. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A man receives a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Swaminarayan School vaccination centre, in London, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021. Britain says it will offer all adults a booster dose of vaccine within two months to bolster the nation's immunity as the new omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads. New measures to combat variant came into force in England on Tuesday, with face coverings again compulsory in shops and on public transport. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A person wears a face mask while crossing a road in Piccadilly Circus, in London, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021. Britain says it will offer all adults a booster dose of vaccine within two months to bolster the nation's immunity as the new omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads. New measures to combat variant came into force in England on Tuesday, with face coverings again compulsory in shops and on public transport. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
A patient receives the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Swaminarayan School vaccination centre, in London, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021. Britain says it will offer all adults a booster dose of vaccine within two months to bolster the nation's immunity as the new omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads. New measures to combat variant came into force in England on Tuesday, with face coverings again compulsory in shops and on public transport. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Vials of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine ready to be administered, at Swaminarayan School vaccination centre, in London, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021. Britain says it will offer all adults a booster dose of vaccine within two months to bolster the nation's immunity as the new omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads. New measures to combat variant came into force in England on Tuesday, with face coverings again compulsory in shops and on public transport. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)