Michael Le Page, Jessica Wilson, Sam Wong, Graham Lawton, Adam Vaughan, Conrad Quilty-Harper, and LayalLiverpool are all involved.
There are people in the streets of Lyon.
KonRAD K/SIPA is a stock photo.
As of 1pm on 5 January, the latest coronaviruses news.
The variant was found in France.
An official from the World Health Organization said that a coronaviruses variant first discovered in France has had a lot of chances to spread but did not.
The variant has been on the WHO's radar since November, according to a WHO incident manager.
Around the same time as omicron, the variant was discovered.
The variant caused at least 12 people to fall ill in November. The variant has 46 different deletions and 46 different alterations in its genome.
Tom Peacock, who was not involved in the analysis, said that the virus had a decent chance to cause trouble but never really materialised.
Only a few of the different versions of the virus have gone on to spread widely. France recorded a national record for covid-19 infections yesterday, as the highly-infectious omicron variant sweeps through Europe.
The president of France told Le Parisien that normal life will be harder for unvaccinated people.
We need to tell them that from January 15th, they will no longer be able to go to the restaurant. You won't be able to go for a coffee or go to the theatre. You won't be able to go to the cinema.
There are other coronaviruses news.
The tennis player Novak Djokovic has faced backlash after he said on his social media that he had received a medical exemption to play in the Australian Open. Only people who are fully protected can travel to Australia. He has expressed anti-vaccination sentiment, but hasn't spoken about his vaccine status.
The athlete has not been given special treatment according to the organizers of the tournament. The Serbian player would need to show a genuine medical exemption to enter the country.
The city of Delhi will impose a weekend curfew. All non-essential activities will be banned from Friday night to Monday morning. The nighttime curfew has been in place since late December from 11pm and 5am. Cinemas and gyms have been closed.
New Scientist has the latest on coronaviruses.
What can we expect from the Pandemic in the year to come?
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is the WHO's Director General.
Information about coronaviruses.
Where did coronaviruses come from? Other questions were answered.
Covid-19 is what it is.
Everything you need to know about Covid-19 vaccines.
How long will it last and can we treat it?
What is the best way to share covid-19 vaccines around the world?
The story of a disease.
What to watch and listen to.
The latest developments in the covid-19 pandemic are covered in New Scientist Weekly. The biggest science stories to hit the headlines each week include technology and space, health and the environment.
The Jump is a series on the radio about how viruses can cross from animals to humans. The first episode looks at the origins of the disease.
Why Is Covid Killing People of Color is a documentary that explores the high death rates in ethnic minority patients in the UK.
The race for a vaccine is a documentary about the inside story of the vaccine's development.
Race Against the Virus: Hunt for a Vaccine is a Channel 4 documentary which tells the story of the coronaviruses epidemic through the eyes of the scientists on the frontline.
The New York Times is ranking potential drug treatments for covid-19 based on their effectiveness and safety.
Humans of COVID-19 is a project that highlights the experiences of key workers in the fight against coronaviruses in the UK through social media.
The death of a transport worker at London's Victoria Station is the subject of a programme called Belly Mujinga: Searching for the Truth.
The coronaviruses is a short documentary series on the efforts to fight it and ways to manage its mental health toll.
The Pandemic that Never Should have Happened and How to Stop the Next One is a book written by Debora Mackenzie, who is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Rules of Contagion is a book about the new science of contagion and how it shapes our lives and behavior. Adam Kucharski is an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and in his book he examines how diseases spread and why they stop.
The previous updates.
A man passes a field hospital in south London.
Neil Hall/EPA-EFE/Shutterstoc k
4 January.
Health service providers are forced to use emergency measures due to staff shortages.
Critical incidents have been declared by at least six National Health Service trusts in England.
The status of a critical incident means that healthcare providers can call for help if they can't provide a range of critical services. Emergency measures are being implemented by the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay and United Lincolnshire Hospitals.
Matthew Taylor wrote in a post that many parts of the health service are in a state of crisis, while community and social care services are at a breaking point.
Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, said on a visit to a vaccine centre that the pressure on the health service will be considerable in the next couple of weeks.
As children return to school today, the government in England has recommended the wearing of face masks in secondary classrooms. High levels of staff absences could lead to children being sent home to learn remotely.
There are other coronaviruses news.
An epidemiologist and government adviser said that covid-19 cases may have peaked in London and could start to fall in other parts of the UK within 3 weeks. Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, told the Today programme that the omicron epidemic has been driving the 18 to 50 age group to get infections.
With the epidemic spreading so quickly and reaching such high numbers, it can't sustain those numbers forever, so we would expect to see case numbers start to come down in the next week.
It's not clear whether they will drop precipitously or if they will see a pattern like we saw with delta back in July. It is difficult to understand what the effect of opening schools will be.
Thousands of schools in the US have delayed the start of term or switched to remote learning because of surging cases caused by the omicron variant. In contrast to cities such as Milwaukee, Cleveland and Detroit, New York City's mayor has vowed to keep schools open. The number of patients in hospital with covid-19 increased by 40 per cent in the past week.
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will be given to children aged 12 to 15. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will now have to decide whether to recommend booster shots for this age group.
New Scientist has the latest on coronaviruses.
The two years of covid-19 have shown us what we have learned.
A soldier is giving a vaccine at the Army Reserve Centre.
Finnbarr Webster is pictured.
24 December
The daily covid-19 update will be back on 4 January.
The UK study found that immunity waned more quickly with omicron.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has released a report stating that the protection against the omicron variant begins to diminish within 10 weeks.
The agency found that the Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are less effective against omicron than delta. Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna boosters are around 60 per cent effective in preventing infections from omicron 2 to 4 weeks after the third dose, but this falls to 35 per cent for people who had two initial doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. The protection goes from 70 to 75 per cent after a Pfizer booster, but goes back up to 75 per cent after a Moderna booster.
The report says that someone with omicron is less likely to be admitted to the hospital. This is based on a preliminary analysis of 114,144 omicron cases and 431,772 delta cases. The Imperial College London study reported a 15 to 20 per cent lower risk.
According to minutes from a meeting of the UK government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies on Monday, modelling suggests that the severity of omicron would need to be around 90 per cent lower to avoid similar levels of hospital admissions to previous waves.
Jenny Harris, chief, said, "We have got a really fine balance between something that looks like a lower risk of hospitalisation, but also a highly transmissible variant and one that we know evades some of our immune defences, so it is a very balanced position."
The UK set a new record for new cases of covid-19 yesterday. The Office for National Statistics estimates that over one million people in the UK had the virus in the week ending 16 December, the highest number since comparable figures began in autumn 2020.
There are other coronaviruses news.
If a healthcare worker in the US tests positive for covid-19 but does not have symptoms, they can stop being isolated after seven days if they test negative for the virus.
Italy has banned public new year's eve celebrations and all concerts and open air events in order to curb a rise in infections caused by the omicron variant. Under new rules, mask wearing is compulsory in outdoor public places.
The interval between second doses and booster shots will be cut from 5 months to 4 from January and then from January to February.
New Scientist has the latest on coronaviruses.
The year of coronaviruses: how alpha, delta and omicron brought new waves of disease across the world.
Hospitals in Cuba collapsed four months ago because of the covid-19 outbreak, but locally made vaccines have succeeded in bringing the outbreak under control.
It is more important than ever for the UK to reach out to communities where vaccine hesitancy is more common, such as pregnant women and some ethnic groups.
There are previous updates from November to December, September to October, July to September, June to July, May, April-March, February, and January.
There are more on these topics.
