Lightning’s fast start fades in shootout loss to Blues - Tampa Bay Times

ST. LOUIS — They were the beneficiary of some fortunate bounces early, and the Lightning didn’t waste any time scoring Tuesday night against the Blues. Unfortunately, they flamed out after the initial flurry.

Tampa Bay lit up the scoreboard early at the Enterprise Center, but from the way the Lightning played past the first six minutes of the game, it seemed like they were chasing a three-goal deficit instead of holding one.

After taking a quick 3-0 lead in the first period, the Lightning surrendered three straight St. Louis goals and eventually fell 4-3 in a shootout. Ryan O’Reilly’s final goal was the difference, as Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington turned away Victor Hedman, Corey Perry and Ross Colton.

The Lightning were short-handed. Without captain Steven Stamkos, who returned to Tampa hours before puck drop for the expected birth of his second child, the Lightning were thin at forward. Already without Mathieu Joseph, out with an unspecified injury, Stamkos’ departure left the Lightning with just 11 forwards.

Still, their initial scoring aim was true, including two goals that came a franchise-record five seconds apart.

Rookie Taylor Raddysh thought he had his first NHL goal 2:02 into the game, but it was given to Anthony Cirelli, who poked the puck between Binnington’s legs after it fluttered wildly in front of the net.

Suddenly scalding scorer Perry then cleaned up a rebound along the far post to put the Lightning up 2-0 5:29 into the game. After going 17 games without a goal, the longest scoring drought to open a season in his 17-year career, Perry now has three goals in his last four games.

Defenseman Erik Cernak, who had missed eight games with a hand injury, then netted one of the strangest goals you’ll ever see. After Colton won the ensuing faceoff, Cernak flung the puck off the glass while attempting to clear it, but it took a wacky bounce toward the goal, off the outside of Binnington’s left skate and into the net.

After the Lightning’s initial surge, the Blues took control. The Lightning went through a stretch of 16:16 from the end of the first into the second without a shot on goal.

After stopping the first 13 shots he faced, Lightning backup goaltender Brian Elliott allowed a pair of goals in a 2:58 stretch in the second period.

O’Reilly put the Blues on the board, beating Elliott top shelf after Jordan Kyrou made a move to get a step on Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, and after drawing the defense to him, fed O’Reilly with a cross-slot pass.

The Blues’ second goal came when Oskar Sundqvist skated into the Lightning zone, made a drop pass to Logan Brown to his left and held up Cernak, preventing him from getting his stick free for a poke check, giving Brown a clear shot to beat Elliott blocker side again.

How much did the ice tilt? Lightning rookie Boris Katchouk nearly had his first NHL goal and had beaten Binnington with a diving wrap-around attempt, but the puck came to a complete stop on the goal line. Katchouk raised his arm, thinking he had scored, but with Binnington sprawled on the ice, Blues forward Robert Thomas flicked it off the line.

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A high-sticking penalty on Cernak late in the second gave the Blues a power play to open the third, and they took advantage, scoring the tying goal 1:11 into the period on Ivan Barbashev’s slap shot from the right hashes.

This story will be updated.

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Fast Fashion Is Bad For The Environment. For Many Plus-Size Shoppers, It’s The Only Option. - Refinery29

Marielle Elizabeth — a writer, photographer, and expert who has been working in the intersection of ethical and plus-size fashion for years — thinks that plus-size shoppers shouldn't be held to the same standards as straight-size consumers when an actual, wide-ranging variety of styles in size-inclusive fashion has only existed for a small fraction of time. In particular, for someone who’s a size 26 and up, being able to shop at more than one or two stores has really only been an option in the last five years or so. “Plus-size people, regardless of whether we're talking about ethical fashion or fast fashion, have really only been able to buy pieces in their size with any level of trendiness — and even that feels tenuous as a plus-sized person — in the last few years,” she tells Refinery29. “[Many] plus-size people are still figuring out their sense of style and how they want to dress themselves.”

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Fast Fashion Is Bad For The Environment. For Many Plus-Size Shoppers, It’s The Only Option. - Refinery29
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Opinion | A shadow war in space is heating up fast - The Washington Post

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

Opinion | A shadow war in space is heating up fast  The Washington Post
Opinion | A shadow war in space is heating up fast - The Washington Post
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The WTO’s Fast Track to Irrelevance - The Wall Street Journal

The Omicron scare provided a face-saving way to cancel the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization, scheduled to open Nov. 30 in Geneva. The session was headed for minimal results, joining this year’s Group of 20 summit and the Glasgow Conference on climate change in failing to achieve their goals. The WTO’s inefficiency, China’s growing influence, and the lack of economic-policy consensus within and among national democracies are the principal causes of its endemic gridlock. The WTO’s weakness exemplifies in many ways the end of the post-World War II liberal international order.

The...

A sign for the 12th Ministerial Conference at the World Trade Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Nov. 25.

Photo: DENIS BALIBOUSE/REUTERS

The Omicron scare provided a face-saving way to cancel the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization, scheduled to open Nov. 30 in Geneva. The session was headed for minimal results, joining this year’s Group of 20 summit and the Glasgow Conference on climate change in failing to achieve their goals. The WTO’s inefficiency, China’s growing influence, and the lack of economic-policy consensus within and among national democracies are the principal causes of its endemic gridlock. The WTO’s weakness exemplifies in many ways the end of the post-World War II liberal international order.

The liberal trade order that took shape after the war had three primary missions: help revitalize the moribund economies of Europe and prevent the advance of the Soviet communist economic model; build an international system to prevent authoritarian revival in Germany, Japan and elsewhere; and reduce North-South tension by helping raise living standards in the developing world. With strong U.S. support, in many cases to its own economic disadvantage, the system succeeded in the first two goals.

But over the past decade or more, the WTO system has lost its leadership role in expanding a liberal, rules-based global order. This is partly because of institutional sclerosis and poor adaptation to the economic and global landscape. The WTO doesn’t effectively cover such challenges as industrial and agricultural subsidies, forced technology transfer, and rules for newer digital and services economies, including data privacy, cross-border data flows and internet commerce.

Instead of addressing these gaps, European and American political leaders have tried to burden the WTO with new missions such as climate change, human rights and labor standards. These efforts often divide economic constituencies within democracies and further widen the North-South gaps. Negotiations over rules for commercial fisheries, a seemingly simple matter, began more than 15 years ago, and the issue still isn’t resolved.

The WTO conflict-settlement mechanism hasn’t adjudicated efficiently, as seen by the 17-year-plus Boeing-Airbus dispute. WTO technical experts have alienated democratic countries by effectively making new rules without adequate negotiations among members.

The rise of mercantilist China, now the world’s largest economy in terms of purchasing power, is another reason for the WTO’s fading effectiveness. Beijing brazenly flouts its WTO obligations in areas like reporting and limiting subsidies, enforcing intellectual-property protections, and meeting the reciprocal-access obligations it took on in 2001 when it was granted entry to the WTO. Its dominance of global manufactured-goods markets—thanks at least in part to noncompliance with WTO rules—has spurred criticism of the WTO around the world.

India has led developing countries in avoiding full WTO commitments. These nations (including China, which self-identifies as a less-developed economy) demand exceptions to enforcement of WTO rules as they build modern economies. India, with the support of African and South American countries and China, has been an obstacle to new WTO rules, such as for fisheries, and a critic of existing ones, such as rules on intellectual-property rights for medications.

The mature economies of the U.S. and Europe have also begun to revive policies of national self-sufficiency, including industrial, technological and agricultural subsidies. Their own “green” industrial policies, such as tax abatements and tariffs on imports of carbon-intensive goods, further complicate the path to WTO reform on subsidies that is needed to confront Chinese mercantilism. Unilateral actions by the U.S.—sometimes mirrored by the European Union—to address China’s violations of rules, which the WTO can’t or won’t address for political reasons, further weaken the global liberal order. The Biden administration has shown no inclination to pursue WTO reform, concentrating its political efforts on domestic policy. It also now supports India in weakening WTO patent rules for Covid vaccines.

The best approach to reinvigorate the WTO is to strengthen regional trade pacts. The revised North American agreement should admit the U.K. and other allies as members. Japan, Australia and Singapore have expertly led resuscitation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership after the U.S. dropped out in 2017. The new agreement, called the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, represents the will of its members in East and Southeast Asia and Australia to avoid dominance under a rival group established by China, called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

The CPTPP has a good set of old- and new-economy rules, as does the revised North American Free Trade Agreement. Both pacts aren’t weighted down by new responsibilities beyond the traditional missions of building reciprocal trade, or by membership of outliers like China. If the U.S. is serious about confronting Chinese economic dominance and retaining some semblance of a liberal trading system, it would be wise to rejoin the CPTPP and build up regional open-trading areas as the WTO loses its leadership role.

Mr. Duesterberg is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He served as assistant secretary of commerce for international economic policy, 1989-93.

Journal Editorial Report: The president signs on to the Fed's inflation. Image: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

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The WTO’s Fast Track to Irrelevance - The Wall Street Journal
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Opinion | A shadow war in space is heating up fast - The Washington Post

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Opinion | A shadow war in space is heating up fast  The Washington Post
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Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson Break Fast After Kanye Prays to “Get My Family Back Together” - Vanity Fair

Beverly Hills Hotel hosted the two for their morning bread.

By Kenzie Bryant

November 29, 2021

Breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day. Some gastronomical wisdom out there prescribes that you eat breakfast like a king. Others say this or that or the other thing is the breakfast of champions. And sometimes, if you’re very lucky, you get to feast your eyes on two parts of a surprising coupling in the celebrity world in the morning—a little added nutritional value for your trouble. Such was the case of one guy from the Netherlands, a music journalist traveling in the U.S., who ate breakfast next to Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson at the Beverly Hills Hotel this weekend. 

A man named Paul Barewijk took a selfie with Kardashian and Davidson at the restaurant and told Page Six that there was “No kissing, but they were very close with each other.” Wonderful. The restaurant offers counter service in an old ’50s-style way, so they were all likely very close, both enjoying their most important meal of the day together. 

I suppose now, nearly a month into Davidson and Kardashian being seen together at restaurants in various neighborhoods on this or that coast, it’s no longer very surprising. They’ve even probably broken fast together—that is, Davidson even appeared to have had a sleepover for his birthday, while her mom was also there, and one might expect breakfast to be included in that situation. 

The photos do, however, come on the heels of Kanye West, soon-to-be ex-husband to Kim, declaring that he believes he’ll get back together with Kim. He published his “super, super, super lengthy Thanksgiving Prayer” on Instagram for all the world to see, a kind of manifesting to the power of celebrity that must work. If he puts it out into the universe then the universe must answer, surely. “All I think about every day is how I get my family back together, and how I heal the pain I have caused,” he said, before launching into a series of self-conscious confessions. The particulars of Ye’s prayer may not have much to do with you or me, but the act of self-reflection is certainly something to chew on, regardless of whether it’s morning, noon, or night. 

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The WTO’s Fast Track to Irrelevance - The Wall Street Journal

The Omicron scare provided a face-saving way to cancel the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization, scheduled to open Nov. 30 in Geneva. The session was headed for minimal results, joining this year’s Group of 20 summit and the Glasgow Conference on climate change in failing to achieve their goals. The WTO’s inefficiency, China’s growing influence, and the lack of economic-policy consensus within and among national democracies are the principal causes of its endemic gridlock. The WTO’s weakness exemplifies in many ways the end of the post-World War II liberal international order.

The...

A sign for the 12th Ministerial Conference at the World Trade Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Nov. 25.

Photo: DENIS BALIBOUSE/REUTERS

The Omicron scare provided a face-saving way to cancel the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization, scheduled to open Nov. 30 in Geneva. The session was headed for minimal results, joining this year’s Group of 20 summit and the Glasgow Conference on climate change in failing to achieve their goals. The WTO’s inefficiency, China’s growing influence, and the lack of economic-policy consensus within and among national democracies are the principal causes of its endemic gridlock. The WTO’s weakness exemplifies in many ways the end of the post-World War II liberal international order.

The liberal trade order that took shape after the war had three primary missions: help revitalize the moribund economies of Europe and prevent the advance of the Soviet communist economic model; build an international system to prevent authoritarian revival in Germany, Japan and elsewhere; and reduce North-South tension by helping raise living standards in the developing world. With strong U.S. support, in many cases to its own economic disadvantage, the system succeeded in the first two goals.

But over the past decade or more, the WTO system has lost its leadership role in expanding a liberal, rules-based global order. This is partly because of institutional sclerosis and poor adaptation to the economic and global landscape. The WTO doesn’t effectively cover such challenges as industrial and agricultural subsidies, forced technology transfer, and rules for newer digital and services economies, including data privacy, cross-border data flows and internet commerce.

Instead of addressing these gaps, European and American political leaders have tried to burden the WTO with new missions such as climate change, human rights and labor standards. These efforts often divide economic constituencies within democracies and further widen the North-South gaps. Negotiations over rules for commercial fisheries, a seemingly simple matter, began more than 15 years ago, and the issue still isn’t resolved.

The WTO conflict-settlement mechanism hasn’t adjudicated efficiently, as seen by the 17-year-plus Boeing-Airbus dispute. WTO technical experts have alienated democratic countries by effectively making new rules without adequate negotiations among members.

The rise of mercantilist China, now the world’s largest economy in terms of purchasing power, is another reason for the WTO’s fading effectiveness. Beijing brazenly flouts its WTO obligations in areas like reporting and limiting subsidies, enforcing intellectual-property protections, and meeting the reciprocal-access obligations it took on in 2001 when it was granted entry to the WTO. Its dominance of global manufactured-goods markets—thanks at least in part to noncompliance with WTO rules—has spurred criticism of the WTO around the world.

India has led developing countries in avoiding full WTO commitments. These nations (including China, which self-identifies as a less-developed economy) demand exceptions to enforcement of WTO rules as they build modern economies. India, with the support of African and South American countries and China, has been an obstacle to new WTO rules, such as for fisheries, and a critic of existing ones, such as rules on intellectual-property rights for medications.

The mature economies of the U.S. and Europe have also begun to revive policies of national self-sufficiency, including industrial, technological and agricultural subsidies. Their own “green” industrial policies, such as tax abatements and tariffs on imports of carbon-intensive goods, further complicate the path to WTO reform on subsidies that is needed to confront Chinese mercantilism. Unilateral actions by the U.S.—sometimes mirrored by the European Union—to address China’s violations of rules, which the WTO can’t or won’t address for political reasons, further weaken the global liberal order. The Biden administration has shown no inclination to pursue WTO reform, concentrating its political efforts on domestic policy. It also now supports India in weakening WTO patent rules for Covid vaccines.

The best approach to reinvigorate the WTO is to strengthen regional trade pacts. The revised North American agreement should admit the U.K. and other allies as members. Japan, Australia and Singapore have expertly led resuscitation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership after the U.S. dropped out in 2017. The new agreement, called the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, represents the will of its members in East and Southeast Asia and Australia to avoid dominance under a rival group established by China, called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

The CPTPP has a good set of old- and new-economy rules, as does the revised North American Free Trade Agreement. Both pacts aren’t weighted down by new responsibilities beyond the traditional missions of building reciprocal trade, or by membership of outliers like China. If the U.S. is serious about confronting Chinese economic dominance and retaining some semblance of a liberal trading system, it would be wise to rejoin the CPTPP and build up regional open-trading areas as the WTO loses its leadership role.

Mr. Duesterberg is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He served as assistant secretary of commerce for international economic policy, 1989-93.

Journal Editorial Report: The president signs on to the Fed's inflation. Image: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

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Shouldn't safer cars be cheaper to insure? Not so fast - Driving

Modern vehicles' advanced driver safety systems may greatly lower collision risks, but can cost in other ways

Author of the article:

Lorraine Sommerfeld

Nissan Safety Shield Photo by Nissan

Article content

As vehicle safety systems have continued to improve, the drivers and passengers in those vehicles have become increasingly safer. The emergence of Advanced Driver Safety Systems (ADAS) is changing the playing field for drivers and insurers alike, and as summed up in this Autosphere article, “in the collision repair industry, there has been, for some time a great deal of interest in the correlation between vehicles equipped with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) features and auto insurance claims.”

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LexisNexis recently released a white paper digging into how these systems are contributing to reducing collisions, reducing personal injury and in turn, the impact of those reductions on the amount of insurance you pay if your vehicle is so equipped.

What are we actually talking about when we refer to ADAS systems? The study includes the following on its list of advanced features:  

• Adaptive Cruise Control                              
• Forward Collision Mitigation
• Adaptive Headlights                                    
• Lane Departure Warning
• Blind-Spot Warning                                    
• Lane-Departure Mitigation
• Blind-Spot Mitigation                                  
• Rear Collision Warning
• Driver Monitoring                                      
• Rear Collision Mitigation
• Forward Collision Warning
  

These features have been tapped for inclusion because they “ have improved automobile safety by minimizing the factor most frequently associated with car accidents — human error,” according to LexisNexis . These technologies are the emerging frontier of autonomous cars; we will not be getting autonomous cars any time soon, but these are the stepping stones to getting us there.

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And if the whole point of autonomous cars is to remove driver error from the equation – by far the most overwhelming factor in everything that goes wrong – then it’s reasonable to assume fewer crashing cars should lead to plunging insurance rates. No damages, no injuries, no payouts. Right?

Sort of. In theory. Maybe. The paper notes it saw a “ 23-per-cent reduction in Bodily Injury loss cost; 14-per-cent reduction in Property Damage loss cost; and eight-per-cent reduction in Collision claim loss cost in ADAS-equipped vehicles compared to non-ADAS vehicles.”

1. 

   Could advanced driver assistance systems increase distracted driving?

2. 

   The difference between telematics, UBI, and pay-as-you-drive insurance

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That long list of ADAS systems they considered in the study led to a root system of factors to untangle, however. All things are not equal in the land of ADAS. “If we compare the raw claim severity data across different MSRP bands, we see vehicles with lower MSRP values tend to have higher Collision claim severity with ADAS (e.g. ADAS Collision claim severity was eight per cent higher on vehicles less than $20K MSRP). However, ADAS-equipped vehicles with higher MSRPs have lower Collision claim severity relative to non-ADAS-equipped cars (e.g. ADAS claim severity was 12 per cent lower on vehicles with a $60K to $80K MSRP). It is easy to see that in trying to determine the severity.” 

The more costly your vehicle, it seems, the more likely it will suffer less damage if equipped with ADAS systems. Does that mean cheaper cars so equipped are not safer? No. It points to the many duelling factors in trying to unknot this chain. Chris Wood is a certified auto body specialist, currently with Leon’s Auto Body in Toronto. With over 18 years of experience in repairing the broken, the bashed and the blemished, he’s the guy you bring your highest-end cars to so you can pretend it never happened. I asked him if the advanced technologies that warn – and save – drivers are changing what he’s seeing come through the door.

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“ We see fewer structural repairs and more minor ones with so-equipped new vehicles, and when I speak to clients the overall response is they were warned and or notified of the potential collision and had time to react to minimize the damage or injury,” he says. Even more interesting from an insurance angle, he says “I am seeing more vehicles coming into Leon’s with a lower percentage of their drivers being found at fault.”

Fewer crashing cars should lead to plunging insurance rates — no damages, no injuries, no payouts, right? Sort of

So why the higher claims on the lower-end vehicles? “The insurance companies look at the type of vehicle and set your rate based on your record, but also based on how new and safe your vehicle is, and what type of safety systems it has,” says Wood. “Once a vehicle is in a collision the components of the system may be damaged – front radar, cameras, sensors, etc. – and this all adds up. In many cases, the vehicle may be a total loss due to the cost of the replacement of those components.” This is the other end of the teeter-totter for insurance companies: modern safety systems may be reducing contact and claims, but when cars do connect, the cost to repair or replace those same systems is significantly higher. On a cheaper car, that might lead to more write-offs instead of costly repair.

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The study illustrates what the insurance industry is currently struggling to get a handle on. “ The Collision distribution shows that while most (34 per cent) ADAS feature combinations resulted in a zero to five per cent Collision loss cost reduction, some (five per cent) combinations had as much as a 20- to 25-per-cent Collision loss cost reduction,” it reads. “Conversely, five per cent of combinations resulted in a five- to 10-per-cent Collision loss cost increase, so it is important to understand the impact of each combination of ADAS features for rating purposes.” 

It shows why it may be premature to expect that the industry reward safer cars (as opposed to drivers; remember, these systems are meant to take them out of the equation) with lower rates. Smaller claims and fewer payouts should lead to those savings, but the repair costs, when they do occur, are on more expensive systems. 

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A semi truck crushed a car on Interstate 5, near Mount Vernon, Washington Photo by Trooper Rocky Oliphant

A currency that definitely needs to be factored in is the human one. Wood points to the huge increases in passenger safety. Manufacturers are tasked with not only developing vehicles that protect their occupants in the event of a collision, but will keep them out of a collision in the first place.

There’s been an explosion of materials that are lightweight to deliver the best fuel economy, yet strong enough to withstand the most violent situations. I don’t think I’ve seen a better testament to how far car design has come than the recent picture of a Nissan Altima trapped beneath a transport on a Washington highway recently. The woman crawled out and walked from the wreck.

Wood also notes an increase in “wow, they walked away from that!” moments. More importantly, he is a huge proponent of older drivers getting into newer vehicles, noting that it’s important to find the balance between “but it’s a perfectly good car” versus “this newer one could be the one that saves your life.” 

Safety at all costs — but there will be a cost.

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China’s population is shrinking, fast - Financial Times

In macroeconomics, there’s a rather tired old saying: “Demographics is destiny.”

The idea is simple. If your workforce can count on the young, the marginalised or immigrants joining in greater number than those leaving it, your economy is in a pretty sweet spot. Consumption, investment and tax revenue should naturally edge higher. Think of the UK in the 1980s, when women began entering the workforce at an accelerated pace. Or the USA’s long-lasting ability, up until recently at least, to attract people from all over the world.

Conversely, an ageing population is a major drag. Not only as your workforce is shrinking, weighing on growth, but as those retirees need their care and pensions funded by a smaller and smaller pot of taxes. Japan, whose population has been in decline since 2007, is the most notable example of this.

Well, up until now at least, according to Jefferies. Because its analysts reckon China’s population is, like a cashmere jumper in a hot wash, set to shrink. And, crucially, faster than many think.

From a note published by Simon Powell (no relation) today:

China’s population will peak in 2022 due to negative natural growth

The sharp decline in births drags natural population growth to negative. Historically, negative natural population growth occurred once in the 1960s during the Great Famine, when deaths exceeded births by 3 million p.a. If births decline by 20% p.a. from 2020 onwards, deaths will surpass births by about 6 million in 2025. We estimate China’s population will peak in 2022, which is almost 10 years earlier than the United Nation estimates.

And the accompanying chart:

The signs of how this is going to influence the economy are there. This Monday the FT reported that nappy producers are to start prioritising its older customers rather than children. Meanwhile, private equity (who else?), have shown a growing interest in burial plot and funeral providers.

We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but it’s all beginning to feel a little like Japan in 1989 isn’t it? A rapidly deflating property bubble fuelled by debt. Tick. Stocks massively underperforming foreign counterparts. Tick. And now, potentially, a population materially declining in size. Tick. Arguably, the only thing missing is a legion of highly profitable businesses — Toyota, Sony, Honda, Nintendo — beginning to accrue excess savings at the expense of its workers.

At this pace, we wouldn’t be surprised if the People’s Bank of China begins cutting rates much faster than the Bank of Japan did in the 1990s. Macro bears have long expected Western economies to get trapped into Japanification. China might beat them to the punch.

Related Links:
Fears of Japanification spreading are misplaced — FT
Nappy manufacturers shift focus in China from infants to elderly — FT

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How fast does it spread?: Scientists ask whether Omicron can outrun Delta - National Post

Author of the article:

Reuters

Nancy Lapid and Julie Steenhuysen

Article content

As scientists race to understand the consequences of the Omicron COVID-19 variant, one of the most important questions is whether this new version of the coronavirus can outrun the globally dominant Delta variant.

The World Health Organization on Friday designated Omicron a “variant of concern” just days after the variant was first reported in southern Africa. The WHO said it is coordinating with many researchers worldwide to better understand how the variant will impact the COVID-19 pandemic, with new findings expected within “days and weeks.”

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Many questions remain, including whether Omicron will evade vaccine protection and whether it will cause more serious illness. But such characteristics would be far less concerning if the new variant remains relatively contained.

Several disease experts interviewed by Reuters said there are strong grounds already for believing that Omicron will render vaccines less effective. Omicron shares several key mutations with two previous variants, Beta and Gamma, that made them less vulnerable to vaccines. In addition, Omicron has 26 unique mutations, many of them in regions targeted by vaccine antibodies.

Within months, however, Delta spread far more quickly than any of its predecessors.

“So the question, really, is how transmissible Omicron is relative to Delta. That’s the major, major, major thing that we need to know,” said John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.

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It is also likely to be one of the last to be answered, experts said. South African officials raised the alarm about Omicron after identifying just dozens of cases of the variant.

Scientists will be closely watching whether cases caused by Omicron reported on public databases start to supplant those caused by Delta. That could take three to six weeks, depending on how fast the variant moves, experts said.

Other information should come more quickly. Within two weeks, “we’ll get a better handle on the severity of the illness,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert and professor of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. “We’re hearing different reports – some saying it’s a very mild disease and others (reporting) some severe cases in South African hospitals.”

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Within a similar time frame, researchers said they expect early answers on whether Omicron can evade protection from vaccines. Initial data will come from lab tests of blood samples from vaccinated people or lab animals, analyzing antibodies in the samples after exposure to the new variant.

“There are a lot of labs that are actively looking to make the Omicron virus and test its antibody sensitivity, and that is going to take a couple of weeks,” Moore said.

David Ho, professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University in New York, believes Omicron will show a substantial degree of resistance, based on the location of its mutations in the virus’s spike protein.

“The vaccine antibodies target three regions on the coronavirus spike, and Omicron has mutations in all three of those regions,” Ho said. “We technical experts are much more worried than the public health experts because of what we know from the structural analysis” of Omicron.

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Others note that earlier variants, such as Beta, also had mutations that rendered the vaccines less effective, but that those vaccines still helped prevent severe disease and death. Even if neutralizing antibodies induced by vaccines become less effective, other immune system components known as T cells and B cells will likely compensate, they said.

“Vaccination will likely still keep you out of the hospital,” said John Wherry, director of the Penn Institute for Immunology in Philadelphia.

The first real-world studies of vaccine effectiveness against Omicron in the community are likely to take at least three to four weeks, as experts study rates of so-called “breakthrough” infections in people who are already inoculated, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota.

Columbia’s David Ho said the fact that Omicron is already spreading in the presence of Delta, “which outcompeted all the other variants, is worrisome.”

But others insist it is still an open question.

When it comes to the specific mutations that could help Omicron spread, it “doesn’t look too much different from Alpha or Delta,” said Hotez. (Reporting by Nancy Lapid in New York and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Diane Craft)

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How fast does it spread?: Scientists ask whether Omicron can outrun Delta - National Post
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