Omicron to be dominant in Europe by mid-January, EU warns

[BRUSELLS] The Omicron variant will likely be dominant in Europe by mid-January, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday, adding that the case numbers appear to be doubling every two or three days.

Von der Leyen said that the current Covid-19 wave in Europe is still being driven by the Delta variant, but it's important to roll out more vaccinations and boosters to fight the new strain. She noted that Europe can now produce 300 million vaccine doses per month.

"We're going to do everything possible to ensure that vaccination skepticism is overcome because the price that we'll pay if people are not vaccinated continues to increase," she said in an address to the European Parliament.

EU countries are taking a varying set of steps to combat, or at least slow, the Omicron wave. Italy imposed a new rule requiring all visitors - including those from other EU countries - to show a negative Covid test before entering the country. Finland is also planning to tighten its travel rules, requiring travelers from outside the bloc to present a negative test.

Already, Denmark, which has one of the most rigorous virus screening programs in Europe, confirmed it's seeing more than 1,000 daily Omicron cases. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday said the variant is spreading "at a fierce pace," calling it "a serious situation."

The bloc's leaders are meeting in Brussels this week to discuss ways to fight the new virus strain, with a particular focus on booster shots. But they are struggling to harmonise their travel rules and to ensure other measures are coordinated across the EU.

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There are still some hiccups in the vaccination effort. Germany's new health minister, Karl Lauterbach, said the country, which was already lagging behind some of its neighbors on vaccination rates, doesn't have enough doses for the coming months.

"We have a shortage of vaccine for the first quarter and I have already been working for several days to correct it," Lauterbach said late Tuesday in an interview with ARD television. He said he's in direct contact with manufacturers to address the shortfall, which came to light after an audit of supplies conducted in recent days.

Germany may be lacking as many as 60 million doses, Business Insider reported Wednesday, citing health ministry calculations.

Asked about the report, a ministry spokeswoman said by email that she was not yet able to provide up-to-date figures on vaccine supplies for next year.

She said the audit had shown that there won't be enough doses in the first three months of next year to sustain the current pace of inoculation, and referred to Lauterbach's pledge to address the problem.

Some 25 European countries have confirmed Omicron cases, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. A preliminary analysis of the initial cases reported shows that about 70 per cent of them were acquired locally and weren't linked to travel from Africa, where the variant was first identified. "This indicates that undetected community transmission could be ongoing" in Europe, the ECDC said.

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