The Spice Girls are set to be reunited at Brooklyn Beckham’s wedding.

The 22-year-old star is poised to marry actress Nicola Peltz in Florida in April, and Victoria Beckham has invited her former bandmates – Mel B, Melanie C, Emma Bunton and Geri Horner – to the lavish event.

A source told The Sun on Sunday newspaper: “It was a lovely invitation and the girls are all excited to attend.

“It will be the first time they have all been together socially for some time, so they are looking forward to the chance to really catch up.

“While Nicola has opted to wear two Valentino dresses on the big day, they will have their pick of Victoria Beckham dresses if they like.”

Last Year, Melanie C revealed that the Spice Girls are “constantly” talking about touring again.

The iconic pop group reunited for a series of shows in 2019, and Melanie admitted she’s keen for another reunion to take place in the coming years.

She shared: “This has to happen. We talk about it constantly. We did the shows in 2019, the plan was to continue on.

“Of course, the world has been in such turmoil, but the plan beyond this is to get out there when it’s safe, when we can do it. What’s tough is there’s so many artists that want to get out there, and there’s only so many venues, so we’re all kind of queuing up going, ‘I want to! I want to!'”

Melanie starred alongside Mel B, Emma and Geri for the comeback shows in 2019.

And the pop star revealed she’s also been “chipping away” at Victoria to join them on stage, after she previously opted out of the reunion tour.

She said: “We would love to have her back onstage. In all honesty, I think it’s gonna happen. At some point, I think Posh Spice will be back onstage.”

Jonathan Riches, who has attended 40 Trump events, joined thousands of other supporters of the former president for a rally in Arizona on January 15, 2021

Florence (United States) (AFP) – Jonathan Riches has been to 40 Donald Trump rallies and fervently believes the last US presidential election was stolen.

Like thousands of others who spent hours in a dusty field in Arizona this weekend to watch the former president speak, that belief is a bedrock — no matter how much the Republican Party leadership wishes otherwise.

“We love our president. I call him President Trump because I still consider him my president,” Riches, 44, told AFP.

Riches was among fellow believers in Florence, 60 miles (100 kilometers) outside Phoenix for Saturday’s rally.

Some had arrived days in advance and traveled long distances — Riches is from Tampa, Florida — and were getting together in a party atmosphere with friends from all over the country.

“It’s awesome,” said Jennifer Winterbauer, who had journeyed from Texas.

“I have better friends here than I do at home. Everybody is like family.”

The reunion was treated to a greatest hits of Trumpism, as speaker after speaker blasted President Joe Biden as “deranged,” hit out at the “lamestream media,” lamented supposedly “open borders” and railed against Covid-19 masking and vaccines.

But the dominant theme was debunked theories about electoral fraud and the illegitimacy of the 2020 presidential poll.

Senior Republicans wish it was different.

Pivot

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell this week came to the defense of fellow Senator Mike Rounds, who earned Trump supporters’ ire by saying he lost.

“I think Senator Rounds told the truth about what happened in the 2020 election,” McConnell told CNN. “And I agree with him.”

McConnell has gently tried to pivot the Republican Party away from a fixation on re-litigating 2020, which Biden won by millions of votes.

Dozens of legal attempts to overturn part of the ballot have failed and no credible evidence of significant voter fraud has emerged.

With the 2022 midterm elections in focus, McConnell wants to concentrate his fire on Biden’s record after a difficult first year in office, with Covid surging, inflation skyrocketing and grocery shelves hit by supply chain difficulties.

But Trump’s hold on a significant proportion of the Republican Party base — and the demand that the 2020 election be re-fought — makes that difficult.

“We have to address 2020,” Winterbauer, 49, told AFP.

“You’re gonna have the same problem. Because just like he (Trump) says, when you rob a bank, you get caught. You don’t get to keep the money. And you don’t get to go away scot-free.”

Speakers were introduced as “Trump-endorsed” and all of them cast doubt on 2020.

“That election was rotten to the core,” Congressman Paul Gosar told the crowd.

When Trump took to the stage, he set about a binary classification of people — those who signed on to his theories about fraud were “smart” and “tough,” while those who didn’t were “horrible” and “weak.”

The message was clear: without getting in line on election fraud claims, no-one will get Trump’s endorsement.

It was music to the ears for Will Garrity, who had traveled from Houston, Texas.

“You can’t tell me that it was a legit election,” he said.

“If you really pay attention to the facts to various audits, various information that’s coming out, you see it. I mean, it’s crystal clear.”

‘Refocus’

While that view was consistent in Florence on Saturday, it is not what the country at large thinks.

An Axios-Momentive opinion poll published this month found that around 40 percent of Americans believe the vote was compromised.

That leaves a majority who want to move on, and for Senator Mike Rounds, the party’s inability to do so could hurt them.

“The election was fair — as fair as we’ve seen. We simply did not win the election as Republicans for the presidency,” Rounds told ABC News last week. 

“Moving forward, we have to refocus once again on what it’s going to take to win the presidency,” he added.

“And if we simply look back and tell our people don’t vote because there’s cheating going on, then we’re going to put ourselves in a huge disadvantage.”

By Francesco Guarascio, Trevor Hunnicutt and Stephanie Nebehay

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The United States, the World Health Organization’s top donor, is resisting proposals to make the agency more independent, four officials involved in the talks said, raising doubts about the Biden administration’s long-term support for the U.N. agency.

The proposal, made by the WHO’s working group on sustainable financing, would increase each member state’s standing annual contribution, according to a WHO document published online and dated Jan. 4.

The plan is part of a wider reform process galvanised by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted the limitations of the WHO’s power to intervene early in a crisis.

But the U.S. government is opposing the reform because it has concerns about the WHO’s ability to confront future threats, including from China, U.S. officials told Reuters.

It is pushing instead for the creation of a separate fund, directly controlled by donors, that would finance prevention and control of health emergencies.

Four European officials involved in the talks, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed the U.S. opposition. The U.S. government had no immediate comment.

The published proposal calls for member states’ mandatory contributions to rise gradually from 2024 so they would account for half the agency’s $2 billion core budget by 2028, compared to less than 20% now, the document said.

The WHO’s core budget is aimed at fighting pandemics and strengthening healthcare systems across the world. It also raises an additional $1 billion or so a year to tackle specific global challenges such as tropical diseases and influenza.

Supporters say that the current reliance on voluntary funding from member states and from charities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation forces the WHO to focus on priorities set by the funders, and makes it less able to criticise members when things go wrong.

An independent panel on pandemics that was appointed to advise on the WHO reform had called for a much bigger increase in mandatory fees, to 75% of the core budget, deeming the current system “a major risk to the integrity and independence” of the WHO.

LONG-STANDING SCEPTICISM

The WHO itself responded to a query by saying that “only flexible and predictable funds can enable WHO to fully implement the priorities of the Member States”.

Top European Union donors, including Germany, back the plan, along with most African, South Asian, South American and Arab countries, three of the European officials said.

The proposal is to be discussed at the WHO’s executive board meeting next week but the divisions mean no agreement is expected, three of the officials said.

The WHO confirmed there was currently no consensus among member states, and said talks were likely to continue until the annual meeting in May of the World Health Assembly, the agency’s top decision-making body.

European donors in particular favour empowering, rather than weakening, multilateral organisations including the WHO.

One European official said the U.S. plan “causes scepticism among many countries”, and said the creation of a new structure controlled by donors, rather than by the WHO, would weaken the agency’s ability to combat future pandemics.

Washington has been critical of the WHO for some time.

Former president Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the WHO after accusing it of defending China’s initial delays in sharing information when COVID-19 emerged there in 2019.

The Biden administration rejoined soon after taking office, but officials told Reuters they think the WHO needs significant reform, and raised concerns about its governance, structure and ability to confront rising threats, not least from China.

One of the European officials said other big countries, including Japan and Brazil, were also hesitant about the published WHO proposal.

A Brazilian official with knowledge of the discussions said Brazil agreed that WHO funding needed to be looked at, but said it opposed the proposal to raise contributions as it had run up deficits tackling the virus and was now facing a fiscal crunch.

Instead, the official said the WHO needed to investigate other ways to raise funds, such as charging for its services, cutting costs or relocating operations to cheaper countries.

“Raising contributions should be the last resort,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the discussions.

Two of the European officials said China had not yet made its position clear, while a third official listed Beijing among the critics of the proposal.

The governments of Japan and China had no immediate comment.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio in Brussels and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Andreas Rinke in Berlin and Anthony Boadle in Brasilia; Editing by Josephine Mason, Kevin Liffey and Daniel Wallis)

Prince Andrew could reportedly have his royal patronages restored if he wins his upcoming legal case.

The 61-year-old prince’s military titles and royal patronages were returned to the Queen earlier this month, but they could be restored if he wins the civil case brought against him by Virginia Giuffre, according to an insider.

Speaking to The Times newspaper, the source said: “I think if the Queen is still alive and his name is cleared I would say that at that point what reason would there be for him to be barred from taking part in royal duties?”

Asked if the situation will be any different if Prince Charles is on the throne, the insider explained: “It’s a different decision-maker and different people influencing him and therefore it’s slightly less predictable.

“I think his brother is a very reasonable and intelligent person and I’m sure he will do what’s right for the royal family and for the country.”

Buckingham Palace recently confirmed that Andrew’s royal patronages have been returned to the Queen.

It was also announced that he will “continue not to undertake any public duties”.

A statement explained: “With the Queen’s approval and agreement, the Duke of York’s military affiliations and Royal patronages have been returned to the Queen.

“The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen.”

The decision was taken after a judge confirmed that Andrew will face a civil case in the US over allegations he sexually assaulted Giuffre when she was 17.

Giuffre filed a civil suit against Andrew on August 9, 2021, using a New York state law that allows survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue, regardless of whether the alleged crimes took place outside the statute of limitations.

Andrew has repeatedly denied Giuffre’s allegations.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The executive committee of the Arizona Democratic Party (ADP) formally censured U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema over her vote against changing rules in the chamber to steer through voting rights legislation, the state party said on Saturday.

Sinema was one of two Democratic senators who joined with Republicans to vote against lowering the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to 50 so that the Senate could pass voting rights bill without bipartisan support.

The censure is mostly a symbolic move, but it does highlight criticism that Sinema has faced from members of her own party, with polling indicating that Sinema is facing a rising amount of backlash from Democratic voters.

Raquel Teran, the state party’s chair, said in a Saturday statement they supported Sinema’s votes to pass legislation to provide more coronavirus relief and to improve the nation’s infrastructure.

“However, we are also here to advocate for our constituents and the ramifications of failing to pass federal legislation that protects their right to vote are too large and far-reaching,” Teran said.

“While we take no pleasure in this announcement, the ADP Executive Board has decided to formally censure Senator Sinema as a result of her failure to do whatever it takes to ensure the health of our democracy,” Teran added.

The failure to pass the legislation was a major blow to President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda and for voting rights groups, which had been fighting a slate of laws passed in Republican-controlled states that election experts have said were designed to suppress voting, especially among Black, Hispanic and poor voters.

Experts and voting rights advocates say the states have passed the legislation largely to back former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was marred by rampant fraud.

In Sinema’s home state of Arizona, state Senate Republicans contracted a private company called Cyber Ninjas to perform a so-called “audit” of the 2020 election. Election officials discredited the probe, with Arizona’s Secretary of State issuing a report saying the election was secure and accurate and calling the review “secretive and disorganized.”

The company has since shut down after a judge ordered it to pay $50,0000 a day in fines, according to media reports.

Sinema co-sponsored the Senate version of election overhaul legislation, but has publicly stated repeatedly she opposed changing filibuster rules.

Sinema’s office shrugged off the censure in a statement.

“During three terms in the U.S. House, and now in the Senate, Kyrsten has always promised Arizonans she would be an independent voice for the state – not for either political party. She’s delivered for Arizonans and has always been honest about where she stands,” a spokesperson said.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

By Jonathan Stempel and Helen Coster

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, has spent 4-1/2 years battling the New York Times over an editorial she said falsely linked her to a deadly Arizona mass shooting that left a U.S. congresswoman seriously wounded.

On Monday, Palin is poised to try to begin convincing jurors in a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court that the newspaper and its former editorial page editor James Bennet defamed her.

The trial before U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff marks a rare instance of a major media company defending its editorial practices before an American jury. Opening statements could take place as soon as Monday, following jury selection.

Palin bears the high burden of showing by clear and convincing evidence that there was “actual malice” involved in the newspaper’s editorial writing process.

“This is a lawsuit over an editorial, essentially an opinion. This is a potentially dangerous area,” said Roy Gutterman, a Syracuse University law and communications professor. “If we give public officials a green light to litigate on editorials they disagree with, where’s the end?”

Palin, 57, has accused the Times of defaming her in a June 14, 2017, editorial linking her political action committee (PAC) to the 2011 mass shooting in an Arizona parking lot that left six people dead and then-U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords wounded. Palin is seeking unspecified damages, but according to court papers has estimated $421,000 in damage to her reputation.

The editorial said “the link to political incitement was clear” in the 2011 shooting, and that the incident came after Palin’s PAC circulated a map putting 20 Democrats including Giffords under “stylized cross hairs.”

It was published after a shooting in Alexandria, Virginia in which U.S. Representative Steve Scalise, a member of the House of Representatives Republican leadership, was wounded.

Palin objected to language that Bennet had added to a draft prepared by a Times colleague. She said the added material fit Bennet’s “preconceived narrative,” and as an “experienced editor” he knew and understood the meaning of his words.

The Times quickly corrected the editorial to disclaim any connection between political rhetoric and the Arizona shooting, and Bennet has said he did not intend to blame Palin.

Bennet’s “immediate sort of emergency mode or panic mode” upon learning what happened strongly suggests he had been unaware of any mistake, said Benjamin Zipursky, a Fordham University law professor.

“Negligence or carelessness – even gross negligence – is clearly not good enough for Palin to win,” Zipursky said.

SUPREME COURT PRECEDENT

It has been 58 years since the U.S. Supreme Court adopted the “actual malice” standard in the landmark decision called New York Times v. Sullivan, which made it difficult for public figures to win libel lawsuits.

Two current justices, conservatives Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, have suggested revisiting that standard.

Palin has signaled in court papers she would challenge the Sullivan case precedent on appeal if she loses at trial.

Don Herzog, a University of Michigan law professor, said Palin would have trouble showing that the Times “subjectively doubted or disbelieved” the truth of what it presented as fact.

“In context, and given the kind of publication it was, this is a matter of opinion and so simply not actionable in defamation,” Herzog said.

While the trial could spotlight office politics at the Times, the newspaper could argue that mistakes do happen under deadline pressure.

It has said that despite Palin’s efforts to demonstrate its “liberal bias” and views on gun control, the editorial was never about her and did not undermine her reputation.

“Gov. Palin already was viewed as a controversial figure with a complicated history and reputation, and in the time since the editorial was published, Gov. Palin has prospered,” the Times said in a Jan. 17 court filing.

The trial is expected to last five days.

Gutterman said he expects the Times to prevail.

“It’s unfortunate that this happened at one of the most prominent newspapers in the county, on deadline, but even a mistake does not rise to actual malice,” Gutterman said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Helen Coster in New York; Editing by Will Dunham and Noeleen Walder)

Washington (AFP) – The Covid-19 pandemic took a deadly toll on adults in the United States for two years while largely sparing children from the dire statistics.

But the rapid spread of the Omicron variant led to record pediatric infections and hospitalizations in the country, and anti-vaccination misinformation that tells parents the shots are dangerous is adding to the risk.

The chances of young people dying from Covid-19 remain low. The shots greatly reduce the odds of severe illness, and vaccinated mothers may pass protection to their babies, but vaccine hesitancy pushed online leaves both parents and children vulnerable.

From worries that the shots were developed too quickly, to false claims that the jabs can impact future fertility, physician Wassim Ballan of Phoenix Children’s Hospital said combating misinformation has become part of his job.

“Unfortunately, a lot of times when we’re having this time with a family to discuss these things is when the child is already in hospital,” he said of the problem.

Parents need to understand that the vaccines are “the most important tool for protection,” especially to avoid multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, a rare and dangerous complication that can follow a mild Covid-19 infection.

Only 27 percent of children aged five to 11 have received a first dose of the vaccine in the United States. Hospitalizations reached a pandemic high of 914 children per day this month, up dramatically from the previous peak of 342 in September 2021.

Protection from the womb

The first week of January 2022 saw Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston report 12 babies in intensive care with Covid-19. 

Babies are too young for the Covid-19 shot, but Kathryn Gray, attending physician of maternal-fetal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said research increasingly shows that vaccination during pregnancy leads to antibodies safely being transferred to the baby, offering limited protection.

Expectant mothers have also shown hesitancy to get the shot after they were excluded from initial clinical trials. 

Gray is among those who are monitoring the situation. “To date there have been no safety signals” in the data, she said, adding that she has “a lot of confidence” in telling patients the shot is safe during pregnancy for mother and baby. 

“If they truly want to protect their infants, getting vaccinated is the thing that will protect them the most at this time.”

Health agencies across the globe say the same, but the initial lack of data continues to be exploited in vaccine-opposed messaging on social media. Posts on Facebook and Twitter claimed that stillbirths rose following the push to vaccinate pregnant people, even though going unprotected against the disease is the greater risk.

Epidemiologists Carla DeSisto and Sascha Ellington from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said data from 1.2 million US births showed “no evidence the rate of stillbirths is higher overall during the pandemic.”

But their research did reveal the risks of contracting the virus while pregnant.

“Compared to pregnant people without Covid-19, pregnant people with Covid-19 are at increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes including preterm birth and stillbirth,” the researchers said by email.

‘Unvaccinated milk’

Breastfeeding has also been the target of misinformation, with posts claiming that babies suffered rashes or even death upon nursing from a vaccinated mother. 

The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine recommends vaccination for those who are lactating and says there is no reason to stop breastfeeding upon receiving the vaccine. 

Misinformation became increasingly common in private Facebook groups where parents connect to share and sell breast milk, group moderators told AFP. In one of the largest such groups, Bethany Bristow said she was concerned by requests for “unvaccinated milk.”

The New York mother, along with her fellow moderators, decided to ban such requests, and the rules for her group of more than 10,500 parents now state: “Advertising or requesting vaccine free milk puts you, your children and community at risk.”

Studies are finding specific benefits of milk from a vaccinated mother, according to Laura Ward, co-director of the Center for Breastfeeding Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

“Antibodies have been detected in the breast milk of vaccinated lactating women. This means that breastfed infants may have some protection against Covid-19 if their mothers receive the vaccine,” she said.

Gray agreed. “Breast milk is full of antibodies based on a person’s prior exposures both to vaccines and infection. Those things don’t pose a risk to infants, they’re actually helpful at protecting them,” she said.

“Any concerns or unknown pieces about the vaccine are dwarfed by the risk of Covid.”

New York (AFP) – A retired, hulking ferry of the iconic line linking Staten Island and Manhattan has been purchased by a group of investors who include popular American comedians Pete Davidson and Colin Jost.

The goal: turn it into an entertainment venue.

The orange ferry John F. Kennedy, which was commissioned in 1965, was sold by New York City to Paul Italia, a real estate agent who owns a comedy club called “The Stand,” and other investors including Davidson and Jost, both cast members of the long-standing comedy show “Saturday Night Live,” Italia told AFP.

The sale — through an auction that concluded this week — was first reported by The New York Times.

Davidson is dating reality TV star Kim Kardashian and Jost is married to the actress Scarlett Johansson.

Both men are natives of Staten Island, one of New York’s boroughs, and Davidson still lives there.

The city says the ferry they have acquired is 85 meters (277 feet) long, weighs around 2,100 tons and was retired from the fleet last year when its engines broke down.

These investors won the auction with a bid of $280,100.

“The idea is to turn the space into a live entertainment event space with comedy, music, art, food, etc.,” Italia told AFP.

It is not yet clear how they will move the broken down ferry from the Staten Island terminal where it is now docked as they prepare to overhaul it and seek a permanent home for the ship. 

Why buy one of these vessels that is a quintessential and free-of-charge part of life in New York? To keep the ship from being scrapped, for one.

“The reality is that everyone who came together on this has a sincere motive to see the right thing happen, to restore a piece of New York,” Italia told the Times.

Lupita Nyong’o thinks it’s “too soon to tell” whether Hollywood has changed for women since the #MeToo movement.

The campaign began after disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual assault and rape in 2017, but the 38-year-old star has admitted Hollywood is still “very much in that moment”, so it’s hard to sum up how things are different.

When asked if she thinks Hollywood has changed for women since the #MeToo movement, she replied: “Honestly, I think it’s too soon to tell.

“I think the change we’re looking for is not just about a change in a trend. I think it’s a change in the normalcy of an industry.

“We’ can’t assess that sort of normalcy just yet because #MeToo as a movement, if you will, is really just in our rear view and we’re still very much in that moment as well.

“So I think only time will tell.”

Lupita has recently been filming ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ – the second film in the franchise – but admitted the cast, which includes Letitia Wright and Martin Freeman, are currently on a hiatus and still have to go back to shoot more.

She told OK! Magazine: “We haven’t wrapped. We’re in a hiatus.

“We had been shooting for a few months. What do you want to know? Because you know I can’t tell you anything.”

But the ‘Us’ actress did admit it has been tough not having the late Chadwick Boseman – who starred opposite Lupita in ‘Black Panther’, and died in August 2020 aged 43 – on the set of the sequel.

She added: “It has been hard. Yep.”

Silicone skin has been created for next-generation “companion robots.”

A Russian company called Promobot are working with a lab based in Vladivostok to build the ‘Robo-C-2’ robot which will be able to exhibit human-like facial expressions, with the company using skin, hair and eyes to create an “attractive” companion,

Petr Chegodayev, a sculptor and head of the lab told Russian media: “Our key task is to make anthropomorphic robots not just realistic but also attractive, to add a touch of aesthetic. We have all the necessary conditions for that here in Vladivostok, and I am sure that we will make a qualitative leap in the near future.”

It comes after the news that Promobot are reportedly willing to pay individuals up to £150,000 ($203,000) to licence their facial identity and voice to them rather than construct fictional faces.

In a statement, the company – who claim to be the biggest robotics firm in North and Eastern Europe – said: “Since 2019, we have been actively manufacturing and supplying humanoid robots to the market. Our new clients want to launch a large-scale project, and as for this, they need to license a new robot appearance to avoid legal delays. We can build a linguistic model based on popular phrases of a particular person – the robot will communicate and answer questions by analysing frequent expressions of the ‘original’ and using a certain context of knowledge of this person.”

Oleg Kivokurtsev, Promobot co-founder, told Russian state news agency TASS that they are planning to create 10 of these robots per month “with any appearance, for home and professional use

Washington (AFP) – Covid-19 vaccines and boosters continued to have very high efficacy against severe outcomes during the Omicron wave of the virus, a large real-world study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed Friday.

The paper evaluated data from more than 300,000 visits to emergency departments, urgent care clinics, and hospitalizations across 10 states from August 26, 2021 to January 5, 2022.

During the period when the Delta variant was dominant, vaccine efficacy against Covid-19 hospitalization was 90 percent between 14-179 days after dose two of a vaccine, fell to 81 percent more than 180 days after the second dose, and rose to 94 percent 14 days or more after dose three.

After Omicron became dominant, the vaccine efficacy estimate against hospitalization between 14-179 days after dose two was 81 percent, 57 percent after more than 180 days from dose two, and 90 percent 14 or more days after dose three.

A second CDC paper, based on data from 25 US state and local jurisdictions, found that vaccine efficacy against infection waned from 93 percent prior to Delta to around 80 percent when Delta became dominant, but protection against death remained stable and high at 94 percent.

Vaccine efficacy against infection fell to 68 percent by the time Omicron emerged. The authors weren’t able to derive an estimate for vaccine efficacy against death during Omicron, because of a lag in reporting, but the broad scientific expectation is that it will remain very high.

The paper also showed that while deaths among fully vaccinated people rose sharply during the Delta wave — totaling more than 20,000 people between July to November — unvaccinated people were still 16 times more likely to die during the same period. 

Protection was even greater for people who were boosted. Between October to November, unvaccinated people were around 50 times more likely to die from Covid than people who were vaccinated and boosted.

By Maria Caspani

NEW YORK (Reuters) -New coronavirus cases are falling in parts of the United States hit hardest by the fast-spreading Omicron variant, according to a Reuters analysis of public health data, offering an early indication the virus might once again be in retreat.

COVID-19 infections have decreased in 19 states https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/USA-OMICRON/zgvomadgmvd/USA-OMICRON.jpg plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, an analysis of the past week through Thursday compared with the prior week showed.

In the Northeast, which saw some of the highest case loads during the latest surge, infections are down 40% week-over-week.

“Certainly it bodes well for us in terms of the trajectory of Omicron,” said Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University in New York City.

The drop was more modest at the national level https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/united-states, with new reported COVID-19 cases down 7% during the same time period, according to the Reuters tally, as Omicron surges in some other parts of the country.

COVID-19 data often lag a few days behind the actual state of affairs.

In the Midwest, cases climbed 11% over the past seven days compared with the previous week, and were up 2% in the South, although the increase has slowed considerably in recent weeks. Western states saw a 3% week-over-week drop in new infections, according to the tally.

Nationally, new cases are averaging a still-high 738,000 a day, down from a peak of 805,000 on Jan. 15.

Deaths, which usually lag new infections by about three weeks and are occurring primarily among the unvaccinated, are averaging more than 2,000 a day, up 50% from the start of the month. That is highest average number of COVID-19 deaths since the end of September, but lower than the record of 3,300 lives lost a day in January 2021.

COVID hospitalizations, also a lagging indicator, set a record on Thursday at 152,746, according to the Reuters tally, but have been showing signs of stabilizing at around 150,000 over the past week.

‘NOT OUT OF THE WOODS’

“We have to be cognizant that we’re not out of the woods, that there’s a glimmer of hope, there is light at the end of the tunnel,” El-Sadr said. “That light is closer or further away based on who you are and where you happen to be.”

Many hospital systems across the country are still struggling to cope with the Omicron-driven surge. Last week, the administration of President Joe Biden said it was sending military health workers https://www.reuters.com/world/us/more-us-medical-teams-bolster-states-omicron-surges-2022-01-13 to hospitals in six U.S. states to help fight the deluge of cases and staff shortages.

The federal government also recently began providing Americans with access to free at-home COVID-19 tests and will soon make millions of N95 masks available after Biden incurred criticism that he was not devoting enough efforts beyond vaccines to fight the pandemic .

The rapid spread of Omicron over the winter holidays forced many Americans to put the brakes on plans for a gradual return to normal life as the United States entered its third pandemic year.

Classes were canceled or delayed in some school districts, the ranks of teachers and staff decimated by illness and safety requirements. Exhausted parents https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exhausted-parents-navigate-patchwork-us-school-covid-19-policies-2022-01-14 were left to navigate a patchwork of school COVID-19 policies while some students, feeling unsafe in school buildings, staged walkouts https://www.reuters.com/world/us/omicron-fuels-surge-us-students-stage-walkouts-protest-in-person-classes-2022-01-14 demanding a switch to remote learning.

Businesses changed or postponed back-to-office plans, while the sweeping surge forced entertainment venues and understaffed restaurants to temporarily shut down.

However, the recent drop in cases in first and hard-hit states like New York and New Jersey is not the only cause for optimism.

El-Sadr, the epidemiology professor, pointed to positive developments in the current fight against the pandemic, including that Omicron has proven to be milder compared to previous versions of the coronavirus, the great protection of vaccines against severe illness and the potential for mRNA vaccines to be adapted quickly to new variants.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Bill Berkrot)