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United States Governments Weigh Mitigation Versus Containment as They Wrestle With Omicron
- Biography
- @JamesHookway
- James.Hookway@wsj.com
The Christmas holiday weekend began with a growing number of governments wrestling with whether to focus on containing the spread of the Omicron variant or trying to mitigate its effects as staff outages and self-isolation requirements continued to disrupt travel and other services across the U.S. and Europe.
Airlines in the U.S. canceled more than 600 flights on Friday, calling off hundreds more that were scheduled for Saturday, and there were similar disruptions across Europe, according FlightAware, a flight-tracking site, reflecting the wider disruptions caused by the quickly spreading strain of Covid-19. Some governments have begun shortening their recommended isolation periods for anyone contracting the virus to limit workforce shortages in key sectors, while the U.S. is rushing to boost testing capacity.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday that critical workers—including those in education, healthcare, transportation, grocery stores and sanitation—who tested positive for the virus would be allowed to return to work after five days under certain conditions. They would have to be fully vaccinated and either they don’t have symptoms or their symptoms are resolving and they haven’t had a fever for 72 hours.
Those returning will need to remain masked, Ms. Hochul said. “We need you again, we need you to be able to go to work,” she said.
New York state’s move comes after England shortened its recommended self-isolation period to seven days for vaccinated people, and some airline executives wrote to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seeking an adjustment in agency isolation guidelines to avoid disruptions to operations.
The CDC on Thursday revised its isolation and quarantine guidelines for healthcare workers, partly to help hospitals maintain enough staff to deal with any rise in admissions due to Omicron. Healthcare workers can go back to work within seven days following a negative test, or potentially even sooner in a staffing crunch. Also, healthcare workers who are fully vaccinated and who got a booster wouldn’t need to isolate after high-risk exposure to the virus.
In the U.S., the 7-day average of Covid-19 cases has eclipsed the peak during Delta’s march through the country. The average reached 182,682 as of Dec. 23, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins University data; the last time the figure was higher was Jan. 21.
In South Africa, where Omicron was first identified, people who don’t have any Covid symptoms won’t have to isolate or take a test if they have been in contact with positive case, the government said Friday. The progress of the new variant in the country has been closely watched after it was first identified last month. Studies there, along with similar studies in Scotland and the U.K., have pointed to a substantially lower risk of hospitalization with Omicron compared with earlier variants such as Delta.
South Africa’s health ministry now advises that asymptomatic people who have been in contact with whose who had tested positive don’t need to isolate but should instead monitor possible symptoms for up to a week and avoid attending large gatherings. Only people developing symptoms should get tested, and isolate for eight to 10 days.
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Other requirements, such as wearing face coverings, remain in place.
Elsewhere, governments are considering tightening restrictions. French authorities will convene a special meeting to assess the progress of the pandemic on Monday, which could lead to further curbs on travel, after France recorded another daily record of nearly 100,000 new infections Friday, 20% of which were attributed to the Omicron variant. Italy also reported another daily record of more than 50,000 new infections, though like elsewhere, the increase in hospitalizations remains modest in comparison.
The U.K. also reported a new daily record of infections on Friday, this time passing 120,000. London is among the worst-affected areas. The U.K.’s Office for National Statistics estimates that one in 20 Londoners had Covid-19 on Dec. 16, with that figure rising to one in 10 last Sunday. Critical services are beginning to feel the weight of enforced staff absences due to isolation requirements or illness.
While Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has reduced the required isolation period to ease the strain and get people back to work more quickly, he hasn’t yet ruled out the prospect of further social-distancing measures in the coming days. Such steps have already been announced in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Many citizens opted to stay home regardless, worried of testing positive and having to cancel holiday plans.
The head of the U.K.’s Health Security Agency on Friday said future decisions would likely be based on social needs in addition to the severity of the illness caused by Omicron.
Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com
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