“South Africa alerted the world to the Omicron variant. Now data out of South Africa may serve as a warning of what we’re facing,” Axios reports.

“South Africa recorded 11,535 new cases Thursday with 22.4% of tests coming back positive — up from an average of about 300 new cases, with a 2% test positivity rate 10 days earlier. The country’s top public health officials expect that exponential rise to continue as Omicron rapidly becomes the dominant variant.”

Washington Post: Coronavirus cases in South Africa nearly triple in three days as fears over omicron grow.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) commissioned a report that showed mask mandates saved lives and prevented Covid-19 infections during the worst part of the delta variant wave, but it was never made public, the Kansas City Star reports.

“President Biden, confronting a worrisome new coronavirus variant and the potential of a winter surge, laid out a new pandemic strategy on Thursday that includes hundreds of vaccination sites aimed at families, boosters for all adults, new testing requirements for international travelers and free at-home tests that will be covered by private insurers or available at community health centers,” the New York Times reports.

“The push to expand access to at-home testing is a tacit acknowledgment by the White House that vaccination, which the president has touted as the path out of the pandemic, is not enough on its own.”

Washington Post: “The omicron variant has been detected in three U.S. states, with Minnesota and Colorado confirming cases Thursday, a day after one was announced in California.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) would not rule out supporting a Republican-pushed amendment to the short-term government funding bill that would defund vaccine mandates for private companies, Politico reports.

Said Manchin: “I’ve been very supportive of a mandate for federal government, for military, for all the people who work on government payroll. I’ve been less enthused about it in the private sector. So we’re working through all of that.”