Moderna President Stephen Hoge said there is a “real risk” that existing Covid-19 vaccines will be less effective against omicron, while US medical adviser Anthony Fauci has said the severity of the variant could be limited.

U.S. health officials said yesterday it was still unclear how transmissible the latest variant of Covid-19 was, how well existing vaccines worked, and whether it would lead to more serious illnesses. Hoge dwelled on comments from Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel, which scared the markets last week, saying it is too early to say how much omicron will degrade vaccines.

“I think there is a real risk that we will see a decrease in vaccine effectiveness,” Hoge said in an interview with ABC. “What I don’t know is how important it is.”

Updated wording would likely be needed if efficacy is shown to decrease significantly, he said.

“Are we going to see something like a 50% decrease in efficacy, which would really mean that we would probably need to restart the vaccines and update them?” Hoge said.

Data from South Africa, where omicron was first detected in November, suggests that it may not cause more severe disease than the more widely circulating delta variant, Fauci said on “The State. Union “from CNN. He cautioned that his conclusion was preliminary.

“So far there doesn’t appear to be a great degree of seriousness,” Fauci said. “We are certain that there will be some degree, and perhaps a considerable degree, of protection against the omicron variant” with existing vaccines, he said. Read more about Tony Czuczka and Justin Sink.

Read more: South Africa dodges wave of hospitalizations fuels Omicron’s hope

United States reassesses travel ban in eight southern African countries as more information about the omicron variant and its spread becomes available, Fauci said yesterday.

“This ban was made at a time when we were really in the dark – we had no idea what was going on,” Fauci said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union”. US medical advisers are assessing the new restrictions “on a daily basis” and Fauci has said he hopes “we will be able to lift this ban within a very reasonable time.” Read more about Justin Sink and Aysha Diallo.

Learn more about Omicron:

• Covid-19 molecular tests developed by Thermo Fisher Scientific, Alphabet’s Verily Life Sciences and nearly two dozen other companies may be able to detect the omicron variant, the FDA said on Friday. Omicron reduces the sensitivity of a genetic target in several molecular tests, the FDA said in an update to its website. This target, which covers part of a spike gene, would not pick up the virus, signaling the presence of the new strain. Genetic sequencing would be needed to confirm the presence of omicron when tests identify this model, the agency noted. Read more from Céline Castronuovo.
• More and more people under 40 are contracting Covid-19 as a fourth wave sweeps through South Africa, first data from the country’s National Communicable Disease Institute show. Up to 68% of coronavirus hospital admissions in the Tshwane municipal area – which includes the capital Pretoria – were under 40. That compares with people over 50 accounting for 66.1% of hospitalizations in the first weeks of wave three earlier this year, the institute said in a report on Friday. Read more about Loni Prinsloo and Antony Sguazzin.
• The daily number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in South Africa nearly quadrupled by Friday since Tuesday as the omicron variant spreads across the country. A South African study of infections since the start of the pandemic found that the risk of re-infection with the omicron variant of the coronavirus is three times higher than for any previous strain. Read more from Bloomberg News.

Learn more about the coronavirus pandemic

Warrant of contractor shot dead under assault in Texas, Georgia: Biden’s power to require Covid-19 vaccinations for federal contractors was attacked in two federal courtrooms on Friday, with a pair of Trump administration-appointed judges considering whether to increase the tally of States where the measurement is blocked. Lawyers for Texas and a seven-state coalition led by Georgia told judges Biden overstepped his authority with an intrusive policy on contractors that in fact only covers his actual program to immunize Americans. Lawyers for the Biden administration have defended the president’s power to set the terms of federal contracts as long as it is tied to economic efficiency because it is about ensuring that contract workers can work instead of ” be sick with Covid-19. Read more about Robert Iafolla.

Fast Track Schedule Denied for Biden Shot-or-Test Litigation: A Cincinnati federal appeals court has dismissed the Biden administration’s request to extend deadlines on court challenge to its shooting rule or emergency test that would expedite consideration of lifting an order that froze the rule. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit did not explain why it rejected the administration’s request to advance the briefing schedule on its motion to dissolve the Fifth Circuit suspension. The Sixth Circuit said in its order on Friday evening that it was “reserving judgment” to set deadlines for examining the merits of the state of emergency. Read more about Robert Iafolla.

Answers Wanted About OSHA’s Covid-19 Healthcare Rule: Time is running out for OSHA’s original Covid-19 temporary emergency healthcare standard. The standard is due to expire on December 21, six months after its adoption on June 21. While the Occupational Safety and Health Administration released the rule saying the tenure would be replaced with a permanent tenure within six months, as of Friday, OSHA hasn’t. Didn’t say when that standing standard. will be published or how the measure will differ from the temporary version. Asked about advice regarding the publication, a spokesperson for the Department of Labor said on Friday that OSHA “has no update at this time.” Read more about Bruce Rolfsen.

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Happens on the Hill

Hearing on drug pricing for surveillance plans: The House Monitoring and Reform Committee has planned a audience Thursday to reveal the findings of the panel’s three-year investigation into pharmaceutical prices and business practices. The hearing will also focus on the need for structural reforms for the industry.

Senators set to quash Biden vaccine mandate: Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Nov. 5 rule requiring private sector employers to enforce Covid-19 vaccination or testing policies would be overturned by SJ Res. 29. The resolution appears to have enough votes to pass the Senate after Sen. Joe manchin (DW.Va.) declared his support on Thursday. Minority leader Mitch mcconnell (R-Ky.) Said he expects a vote this week. If the Senate passes the resolution, it would likely stagnate in the Democratic-controlled House, writes Bloomberg government analyst Adam M. Taylor.

Aging research, advocacy group launched with help from Gingrich: Group trying to raise age-related conditions and promote research to make humans live longer gets help from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a longtime enlargement advocate of the government’s research portfolio, reports Alex Ruoff.

The Alliance for Longevity Initiatives, a nonprofit backed by several research organizations and companies, hopes to make inroads into Congress to increase what government spends on aging research and to enable companies to get more. easily approving drugs to help people live longer. life, said Dylan Livingston, president and founder of the group. “It’s about staying healthier longer,” Livingston said. The group wants to work with the Food and Drug Administration to create a special path for therapies in the “longevity medicine” space and increase the budget for the National Institute on Aging, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, has said Livingston.

The Alliance Thursday host a conversation with Gingrich and former Rep Steve Israel (DN.Y.). Gingrich is linked to the group by Joseph DeSantis, who is chief strategy officer of Gingrich 360, a consulting firm formed by Gingrich, and sits on the Alliance board.

What else to know

Telehealth visits in Medicare Soar: Medicare telehealth visits increased 63-fold, from around 840,000 in 2019 to 52.7 million in 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic forced beneficiaries to forgo in-person medical visits in favor of meetings virtual, according to a study by the HHS. Ninety-two percent of telehealth visits, which allow patients and providers to interact live via a computer, tablet or smartphone, took place from the homes of beneficiaries, which was not allowed by Medicare before the pandemic. The massive increase in telehealth visits has occurred while overall in-person visits to clinicians declined by 11% from 2019 to 2020. Read more about Tony Pugh.

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To contact journalists on this story: Michaela ross in Washington at [email protected]; Alex ruoff in Washington at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Zachary Sherwood To zs[email protected]; Giuseppe Macri To [email protected]