Considered less dangerous than the Delta variant, Omicron still remains a threatening strain of Covid-19. According to the World Health Organization, half a million people have died since this strain first discovered in South Africa was listed as of concern by the organization.
In France, the fifth wave seems to have reached its peak last week, with indicators slowly coming down. Enough to announce in schools a possible reduction in the health protocol by the end of the week, or next week, while the European Medicines Agency is studying the possibility of a booster dose in 12-15 year olds.
- Towards the end of the vaccination pass “end of March, beginning of April”?
The government believes that there are “reasons to hope” that “at the end of March-beginning of April we can lift the vaccination pass”, due to the improvement in the health situation, spokesman Gabriel Attal said on Wednesday.
“The frank decline, we are there”, he said at the end of the Council of Ministers, in allusion to the decline in contamination. “There are reasons to hope that by this time horizon the situation will have improved sufficiently for us to be able to lift its final measures,” he added.
- Half a million dead since Omicron
The World Health Organization (WHO) lamented on Tuesday that there have been half a million deaths from Covid since the discovery of the Omicron variant and although vaccines exist, calling this toll “more than tragic”. .
“While everyone was saying the more benign Omicron, we missed the fact that half a million people have died since it was detected,” said WHO incident manager Abdi Mahamud. . “In the era of effective vaccines, half a million people dying is really something (…) It is more than tragic”, he added, during an organized exchange on social networks by the organization.
According to Abdi Mahamud, 130 million cases and 500,000 deaths have been recorded worldwide since Omicron was deemed “concerning” by the WHO in late November. This variant has since quickly overtaken Delta as the world’s dominant variant, as it is more contagious, although it appears to cause less severe disease.
- Announcements expected at the end of the week for the school in France
Reductions in the health protocol in schools for the return from the February holidays should be announced “at the end of the week or the beginning of next week”, with among the avenues envisaged, a reduction in the number of self-tests or the end of the wearing of the mask outdoors, unions said on Tuesday.
“We were told that an opinion from the High Council for Public Health would be given at the end of the week” and “that the decisions would then come fairly quickly”, with “announcements planned for the end of the week or the beginning of the week next,” Sophie Vénétitay, secretary general of Snes-FSU, the leading secondary school union, told AFP after a meeting between the trade unions, the ministries of Education and Health and the Haut public health council.
“It should be either Friday or early next week,” added Guislaine David, general secretary of SNUipp-FSU, the first primary union.
- The subcontractor Cenexi will produce a study treatment in France
The French subcontractor Cenexi has signed an agreement with the American biotech Humanigen to produce Lenzilumab in France, a potential treatment under study against Covid-19, he announced on Wednesday. Cenexi, a pharmaceutical subcontractor specializing in the formulation and development of innovative sterile products, will thus become the sole producer in France of this potential treatment for the next five years. The batches will be produced in its factory in Hérouville-Saint-Clair, in Calvados.
Lenzilumab, a monoclonal antibody, aims to prevent and treat “cytokine shock” or “cytokine storm”, an uncontrolled inflammatory reaction that appears to play a key role in severe cases of Covid-19. It is currently being registered with the European and French health authorities.
Humanigen is also studying the effectiveness of this treatment in other inflammatory conditions, such as graft-versus-host disease in patients who have received a transplant of hematopoietic stem cells, cells made by the bone marrow.
- EMA assesses Pfizer booster dose for 12-15 year olds
The European medicines regulator announced on Tuesday that it had begun assessing an application for approval of a booster dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid vaccine, called Comirnaty, for children aged 12 to 15.
The European Medicines Agency said last week it would soon decide on a similar request for 16- and 17-year-olds.
The EMA had in October approved Pfizer-BioNTech’s “Comirnaty” booster shots for everyone aged 18 and over, then made a similar decision on Moderna’s “Spikevax” booster shots.
- In Canada, relief in the face of the challenge of truck drivers
Faced with the determination of the demonstrators who have blocked the center of the capital Ottawa for more than ten days, a movement seemed to be starting on Tuesday in Canada to relax the health restrictions against Covid, among the strictest in the world. In central Ottawa, between 400 and 500 trucks still occupied the streets on Tuesday to oppose sanitary measures, a situation “out of control” for the city which triggered a state of emergency this weekend.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who remained silent for several days, denounced the movement on Monday and said that “it had to stop”. “We are all tired of the restrictions, of having to make sacrifices almost every day, but our responsibility as a government is to ensure everyone’s health and safety,” he told AFP on Tuesday. the House of Commons.
Some provinces, however, have announced new relief: thus, Saskatchewan and Alberta (center), will completely give up the vaccine passport, believing that “the benefits no longer outweigh the costs”. And for the first time since the implementation of new restrictions linked to the Omicron wave, Quebec has announced a detailed timetable for the relief to come.
- Johnson & Johnson has temporarily suspended production of its vaccine
Johnson & Johnson has temporarily suspended production of its Covid-19 vaccine at the only factory that currently manufactures salable batches, in the Netherlands, the report said on Tuesday. New York Times, the laboratory ensuring that this does not affect its deliveries. According to the American daily, the factory located in Leiden stopped producing the vaccine at the end of last year to instead manufacture an experimental vaccine against another virus.
The production of the anti-Covid-19 vaccine should resume there “after a break of a few months”, adds the newspaper, citing people familiar with the decision. Without confirming or denying this information, Johnson & Johnson pointed out that it had “millions of doses” in stock.
The group “continues to fulfill all of its obligations with regard to the Covax system [qui approvisionne les pays pauvres en vaccins anti-Covid-19] and the African Union,” the company also said in a message sent to AFP. Johnson & Johnson, which has been selling the product at cost since the start of the pandemic, distributes much less of it than Pfizer or Moderna.