The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and the Omicron variant

The safety of holiday gatherings has less to do with a person’s journey there and more to do with the way they behaved the week leading up to it, said Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday.

“We really do want people to be able to gather, and safe gathering includes, of course, being vaccinated, ideally being boosted if you’re eligible to be boosted, and making sure that all the people who you gather with are also vaccinated and boosted,” Walenksy said when asked if people who are vaccinated and boosted can forego testing and spend time with friends and loved ones.

“But I want to remind folks that, you know, so much about the safety of your gathering has less to do with the plane ride or the train ride that you’re going to do to get there and very much to do with the behaviors that you have in the week prior to your gathering," she added.

“Have you been practicing those safe prevention strategies? Or have you been out and gathering in indoor settings, public indoor settings without a mask on? Because that’s really when your exposure would have happened,” said Walensky.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday gave credit to the Trump administration for the development of the Covid-19 vaccine and praised his predecessor, Donald Trump, for getting a booster shot -- marking a rare moment where the two men have found common ground since Inauguration Day.

"I got my booster shot as soon as they were available," Biden said during a speech from the White House about his administration's efforts to address the Omicron variant of Covid-19, adding, "and just the other day former President Trump announced he had gotten his booster shot."

"It may be one of the few things he and I agree on," Biden continued. "People with booster shots are highly protected. Join them. Join us."

Read the full story here.

"Help."

That word, in big black letters and surrounded by white space, called out from Ohio's largest newspaper -- a desperate plea from six Cleveland-area medical systems facing a crush of Covid-19 cases.

"We need your help," read the bottom of the ad. "We now have more COVID-19 patients in our hospitals than ever before.

"And the overwhelming majority are unvaccinated."

The ad was sponsored by Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, MetroHealth, Summa Health, the US Department of Veterans Affairs and St. Vincent Charity Medical Center.

It follows a similar plea from hospitals in Minnesota earlier this month, who took out a full-page newspaper ad that said, "We're heartbroken. We're overwhelmed."

Sunday's ad in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer was a response to the latest Covid-19 health crisis exploding in Northern Ohio, nearly two years into a pandemic that has killed more than 810,000 Americans and battered many of the nation's hospitals.

Read the full story here.

Amid the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus, Thailand has announced some changes to its inbound quarantine-free travel status for some visitors.

Thailand reported its first Omicron case December 6 and decided to change its travel policies shortly afterward.

As of midnight on December 22, no new applications for quarantine exemptions under the Thailand Pass scheme will be considered. The government says this is a temporary suspension rather than a permanent ban, but there's no date yet for when the hold might be lifted.

Thailand Pass was one of the southeast Asian country's significant moves toward reopening to travel.

Tourism is one of Thailand's biggest industries, with nearly 40 million visitors in 2019. Under the conditions of the Thailand Pass, fully vaccinated people hoping to visit from a low-risk country could apply to bypass quarantine on arrival.

Read the full story here.

Surrounding unvaccinated children with vaccinated people is the best way to keep them safe, said US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Walensky on Tuesday.

Everyone will need to assess their own personal risk when it comes to holiday activities, said Walensky, but vaccinating adults helps protect unvaccinated children.

“As for the children who are under five, really the best way to keep them protected is to surround them, cocoon them with people who are vaccinated and if eligible, who are boosted,” she told CNN’s John Berman.

Walensky continued to echo other public health experts by promoting vaccines, boosters, and masks as tools we have right now to protect ourselves.

Covid-19 claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the US in 2020, driving a record increase in the death rate and a drop in life expectancy of nearly two years, according to final 2020 death data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics.

Life expectancy at birth fell 1.8 years in 2020, from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77 years, the largest single-year decline in more than 75 years.

The death rate -- about 835 deaths per 100,000 people – jumped nearly 17% from 2019, the sharpest increase in more than a century since the CDC has been tracking this data.

The year-over-year increase was even starker among racial and ethnic minorities, with death rates for Hispanic people increasing about three times as much as White people, and death rates for Black people increasing about twice as much as White people.

Covid-19 was the third leading cause of death overall, accounting for more than 10% of all deaths in 2020. Final death data from the CDC shows that Covid-19 was the underlying cause of death for 350,831 people in 2020, in line with data reported by Johns Hopkins University.

Heart disease and cancer remained the top causes of death in 2020 and, together with Covid-19, accounted for about half of all deaths in the US for the year.

Other leading causes include unintentional injuries, stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, and kidney disease.

Death rates for most of these causes increased, with a nearly 15% increase in death rates for diabetes and nearly 17% for unintentional injuries, which includes drug overdose deaths. 

Death rates also increased for each age group 15 years and older.

But infant mortality rates reached a record low: about 542 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020, down about 3% from 2019.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown will extend her declaration of a state of emergency ahead of an expected surge in Covid-19 cases across the state, she announced Tuesday.

The declaration will allow the state to prepare for and respond to the impending Omicron variant surge in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations, the governor said in a news release.

"As Oregon prepares for what could be our worst surge in hospitalizations during this pandemic, I know that this is not the beginning of the new year any of us had hoped for," said Governor Brown. 

Extending the emergency declaration ensures that the state will continue to receive federal funding to help handle the Covid-19 pandemic, the release stated. 

The emergency declaration will remain in effect until June 2022, unless it is rescinded earlier or extended, the release stated. 

France will vaccinate children aged 5-11 against Covid-19 starting Wednesday, the country's health minister, Olivier Veran, told CNN’s French affiliate BFMTV.

On Monday, the French National Authority for Health (HAS) said it was in favor of opening “optional” vaccination to children aged 5-11. 

Veran added that the Omicron variant, which now makes up 20% of total Covid-19 cases in France, will represent 35-45% of cases in a few days. 

“It will represent the majority of cases between Christmas and the New Year,” he said. “We will surpass the 100,000 contaminations per day by the end of the month according to projection models.” 

Veran said the third shot vaccination campaign will accelerate to "allow the booster dose as early as 4 months after the injection from next week, instead of January," but no new restrictions are expected soon.  

South Korea reported yet another record number of Covid-19 patients in critical condition, according to the Korea Disease Control Agency (KDCA) data from Tuesday.

As of 12 a.m. local Wednesday, a total of 1,063 Covid-19 patients are in critical condition, and 84% of them are aged 60 and above, KDCA said.

Health Minister Kwon Deok-chul said on Wednesday the government will add a total of 6,944 hospital beds for Covid-19 patients in moderate and critical condition by the end of January 2022.

National university hospitals are already cooperating to provide 308 hospital beds for critically ill Covid-19 patients, according to Kwon.

He added that public hospitals, like the National Medical Center, will convert to treating only Covid-19 patients by January.

Hospitals for Covid-19 patients in need of special treatment, such as dialysis, pregnancy and mental health will also be added, Kwon said

He also said more public medical workers, including military doctors, will be allocated to treating Covid-19 patients and the government will prepare the national health system to be able to handle 10,000 patients a day, with a worst-case scenario in mind.

The announcement is in line with President Moon Jae-in’s instructions from Monday to expand medical response capability by securing more hospital beds and medical workers. 

South Korea reported 7,456 new Covid-19 cases from Tuesday, increasing the country’s total number of confirmed cases to 583,065, according to the KDCA. The death toll rose to 4,906 after 78 deaths were added from Tuesday.

As of 12 a.m. local Wednesday, 85.1% of the population received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, 82.1% of the population received a second dose of vaccine, and 25.5% received a booster shot, according to the KDCA on Wednesday.