December 29 coronavirus pandemic and Omicron variant news

Italy announced Wednesday that there were at least 98,030 new Covid-19 infections over the past 24 hours, a new daily record for the country.

The number of dead from the virus grew by 136, according to data released by the health ministry.

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Americans against attending large-scale New Year’s Eve celebrations this year, suggesting that people opt for smaller gatherings with vaccinated and boosted family and friends as the Omicron variant spreads across the country.

But, Fauci added, “If your plans are to go to a 40-to-50 person New Year's Eve party with all the bells and whistles and everybody hugging and kissing and wishing each other a Happy New Year? I would strongly recommend that, this year, we do not do that.”

White House Covid-19 Response Director Jeff Zients told CNN’s Jeremey Diamond Wednesday that the administration expects the contract for purchasing 500 million at-home rapid Covid-19 tests “to be completed late next week,” adding that the Departments of Health and Human Services and Defense “are executing on an accelerated contracting timeline” to speed up distribution. 

As CNN reported earlier Wednesday, the inability to secure enough timely tests for the number of people who want them has led to a new reckoning for Biden's Covid-19 response, while delays in launching the administration’s 500 million test purchase led to major disruptions to holiday travel and frustrations around the availability of testing.

Walking along the seafront in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Biden said on Tuesday that he'd made "a bit of progress" in distributing the new tests. But he didn't expand on how far along the program was.

Pressed Wednesday on the dearth of available tests, Zients pointed to the administration’s efforts to ease testing shortages through federally-run testing sites in major cities. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci reiterated Wednesday that the idea of a domestic US travel vaccination requirement remains on the table as the Omicron variant spreads across the US, but suggested it was not necessary at this time.

Fauci explained that an international travel vaccine requirement was made to help prevent infection and new variants from spreading in the US. A domestic travel vaccine requirement, he said, is different.

“Right now, we feel that the masking requirements and the degree of filtration on a plane is sufficient to keep people safe,” he said.

But he left the door open to a future requirement should the situation – and the science – change.

“If there’s a need to do more beyond this masking, namely, having a vaccine issue, we will seriously consider that as new information arises. So it’s just keeping an open mind that the situation may change, but at this particular time, we do not feel that it is necessary to make that a requirement for domestic flights,” Fauci said. 

Fauci had said earlier this week that such a requirement should be “seriously considered.” But President Biden indicated Tuesday he would only make the decision if he got that recommendation from his medical team. Biden's chief of staff Ron Klain indicated there will not be any change to the current policy before the argument on workplace vaccine mandates goes before the Supreme Court in January.

White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients offered some new details on federal support for Covid-19 testing and treatment across the country during a briefing Wednesday. 

The Biden administration’s Covid-19 response team, Zients said, has been working “hand-in-hand with governors and local health officials across the country to assess and address needs on the ground,” something President Biden reiterated to the nation’s governors earlier this week.

In New York, he said, 60 FEMA medical personnel and 30 ambulances arrived last week to help transport patients to hospitals around the states. FEMA has also established nine federally-run testing sites in New York City, with three more opening Sunday.

In Arizona, 20 FEMA paramedics began providing clinical support starting Dec. 24, with 40 more personnel arriving next week to assist with treatment in Maricopa and Pima counties and tribal communities. 

In Indiana, Zients said, 23 military medical personnel started their mission on Christmas Day at University Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.

In New Mexico, 15 medical personnel from the US Public Health Services Commissioned Corps arrived Monday to provide surge support in Indian country, with 15 ventilators being sent to the state Wednesday and 12 federal personnel arriving next week to assist with vaccinations.

A 23-person military medical team starts supporting Belen Hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Friday.

A federally-run free testing site will open in New Jersey on New Year’s Day, with additional testing sites opening in Philadelphia and Washington, DC, in the “next several days.”

Additionally, he added, 1 million gloves, 342,000 masks, respirators, and face shields, and 40,000 gowns have been shipped to states “in the past couple of weeks alone.”

“We’ve been working around the clock to surge reinforcements to communities as they battle Omicron, helping to staff hospitals, administer monoclonal antibody treatments, transport patients, add testing capacity, and get more PPE to where it is needed, and you’ll see us continue to act aggressively to address the communities’ needs in the days and weeks ahead,” Zients said.

The Spanish government has reduced the quarantine time for people who tested positive for Covid-19 from 10 to seven days, the country’s health ministry said Wednesday. 

The duration of quarantine for unvaccinated people who were in close contact with positive cases is also reduced to seven days, the ministry said in a statement.  

The government has not clarified when the new isolation requirements will be in place. 

Ahead of the announcement, during his traditional end-of-year speech in Madrid, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said this decision would be “very important to many citizens.”

Spain's Health Minister met with the health department chiefs from the regional governments Wednesday afternoon to discuss details.

The true seven-day incidence rate of Covid-19 infections in Germany is two to three times higher than reported in current statistics, according to Health Minister Karl Lauterbach. 

Because of the holidays, there is currently a "significant under-reporting" of Covid-19 infections, Lauterbach said.

"The incidence currently reported underestimates the danger we are in," the minister warned, adding that he expects a significant increase in the Omicron variant cases within a few weeks.

Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari has tested positive for coronavirus, his office said in a statement, adding that he is staying in a hospital. 

“President Ahtisaari is doing well under the circumstances, but stays at the hospital for the time being. He tested positive for coronavirus also in March 2020,” his office said.

Ahtisaari, 84, was Finland's president from 1994 to 2000 and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on CNN’s New Day Wednesday the decision to shorten the isolation period for those with asymptomatic Covid-19 infection was driven by evidence around transmission and what isolation protocol people “would be able to tolerate.”

CDC “really wanted to make sure” that the first five days were spent in isolation, Walensky said, adding that they were asking people to mask in the last five days. 

They also looked at epidemiology, she said, and they are seeing and expecting even more cases of Omicron, many of which were mildly or asymptomatic. 

Finally, they looked at behavioral science, “what will people actually do when people need to get back to work? What is it that they will actually do? And if we can get them to isolate, we do want to make sure that they’re isolating in those first five days when they’re maximally infectious.” 

Asked if the decision had as much to do with business as with science, Walensky said “it really had a lot to do with what we thought people would be able to tolerate.” 

There have been relatively low rates of isolation throughout the pandemic, she said, adding “some science has demonstrated less than a third of people are isolating when they need to.” 

“We really want to make sure that we had guidance in this moment where we were going to have a lot of disease that could be adhered to, that people were willing to adhere to. And that spoke specifically to when people were maximally infectious. So it really spoke to both behaviors as well as what people were able to do,” she said.

Walensky also said that the old 10 day guidance was “conservative,” when asked why they didn’t make the change sooner. 

“But, in the context of the fact that we were going to have so many more cases, many of those would be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic, people would feel well enough to be at work, they would not necessarily tolerate being home and that they may not comply with being home,” she said. “This was the moment that we needed to make that decision and those changes.”