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Across Western Europe — which, like much of the world, is coping with the wildfire spread of Omicron, the highly contagious coronavirus variant — the vaccine-hesitant are coming under mounting official pressure to get inoculated, if they are able. And that is triggering an impassioned backlash. In one European country after another, public health restrictions are steadily tightening. Italy declared a vaccination mandate for those over age 50. The biggest party in Germany’s governing coalition says it will decide by the end of March whether to try to push through a universal vaccination mandate. (El-Faizy and King, 1/7)

Quebec has tried everything from restaurant closures to a curfew to slow down hospitalizations as the omicron variant rages on. It’s now adding a more draconian measure to its arsenal: Requiring vaccination proof to enter government-owned alcohol and pot stores. From Jan. 18, residents will need a vaccine passport to enter Societe des alcools du Quebec (SAQ) and Societe quebecoise du cannabis stores, Health Minister Christian Dube said Thursday. Other restrictions targeting unvaccinated people will follow, he said. (Rastello, 1/6)

A surge in Covid-19 infections around U.S. military bases in Japan is generating tension between Tokyo and Washington after a loophole in entry rules for American soldiers accelerated the spread of the Omicron variant. Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Thursday in Japan asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken for U.S. service members to be restricted to their bases, and regions around bases called for emergency steps to prevent the spread of Covid-19. (Gale, 1/6)

As omicron sweeps through North America, the U.S. and Canadian responses couldn’t be more different. U.S. states are largely open for business, while Canada’s biggest provinces are shutting down. The difference partly comes down to arithmetic: The U.S. health care system, which prioritizes free markets, provides more hospital beds per capita than the government-dominated Canadian system does. “I’m not advocating for that American market-driven system,” said Bob Bell, a physician who ran Ontario’s health bureaucracy from 2014 to 2018 and oversaw Toronto’s University Health Network before that. “But I am saying that in Canada, we have restricted hospital capacity excessively.” (Platt and Orland, 1/6)

The shop attendant leaned forward conspiratorially. “They have a supply come in downstairs at 11 a.m.,” he said. “The sign says they don’t have any, but it’s always up. Just ask and they’ll … ,” he added, miming pulling something illicit out from under a counter. He was talking about buying a rapid antigen test (RAT). Two years into the pandemic, getting tested for the coronavirus in Australia’s cities has been reduced to a whisper network and friend-of-a-friend tips, sleeping in cars outside testing centers, and waiting in lines for up to eight hours with no access to food, water or toilets. (Vinall, 1/7)

As omicron infections surge, Israel has begun rolling out a newly approved Pfizer drug, using digital health records kept on nearly every citizen to identify those who are at high risk from covid-19 and are likely to benefit most from the treatment even before they become dangerously ill. Israel is one of the first countries to put Pfizer’s Paxlovid anti-viral pill into use, and doctors affiliated with the four publicly funded health-care networks here are now dispensing more than 100 courses a day, less than a week after the pill won approval. The drug is being dispatched to qualified patients’ homes almost as soon as they test positive for the coronavirus. (Hendrix, 1/6)

In the latest bid to expand access to the Pfizer (PFE) Covid-19 pill, a nonprofit group and an association of pharmacists are seeking to make it possible for generic manufacturers to sell the medicine in Chile, which was excluded from a recent licensing deal the drug maker reached for its pill to become available in mostly poor countries. The plan hinges on convincing the Chilean government to issue a compulsory license, which countries can grant to a public agency or a generic drug maker, allowing it to copy a patented medicine without the consent of the brand-name company that owns the patent. This right was memorialized in a World Trade Organization agreement. (Silverman, 1/6)

Researchers have started recruiting South African health workers to take part in a vaccine trial that will compare the use of Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer Inc. Covid-19 shots as boosters. The health workers being targeted for the study were part of an initial trial known as Sisonke that saw almost half a million people given an initial dose of J&J’s vaccine. The trial, which will be carried out by Johannesburg’s Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, will run for six months, according to an invitation to potential participants. Participants will be randomly allocated a full or half dose of a vaccine made by either J&J, or Pfizer and BioNTech SE. (Sguazzin, 1/7)

A protein-based COVID-19 vaccine made by Sinopharm, when given as a booster after two doses of an earlier shot from the Chinese firm, elicited a stronger antibody response against the Omicron variant than a third dose of the original, a study showed. (Liu and Woo, 1/7)