HEADS UP: How to Overcome Christmas Anxiety due to Omicron the Grinch (Dec. 14)

Here’s a Heads Up from reportr on news you need to know today, Dec. 14:

LIFE KIT

• Is anxiety from Omicron keeping you from going out and enjoying yet another pandemic Christmas? Here’s how you can deal with it.

MISS UNIVERSE

• Beatrice Luigi Gomez finished Top 5 at Miss Universe, with India winning its third crown.
• Her cherry blossom armband tattoo on full display, Gomez also sought to redefine what it means for women to have their skin inked.
• Gomez also extended the country’s semifinal streak in Miss Universe to 12 years and entered the Top 5 for the first time since 2018.
• Behind the scenes, it was a lesson in geopolitics as Pro-Palestine groups sought a boycott of the pageant that was hosted in Israel.

NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Typhoon Odette is expected to enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility today with winds expected to peak at Signal No. 3, before landfall in the Visayas or Mindanao late tomorrow.
• A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck off Batangas yesterday and was felt in Metro Manila.
• The waiting time between the second shot and the booster dose could be halved to as short as three months to better protect the population against the Omicron variant, the country’s vaccine czar said.
• Calls to suspend the 2022 elections due to the pandemic are “unlikely” to prosper, Comelec said.
• The Omicron variant spreads faster compared to Delta and weakens vaccines while causing less severe illness, the WHO said.
• Despite protests, Comelec is insisting that candidates have their social media accounts verified before they can run political ads.
• Health costs during the pandemic pushed over half a billion people into poverty, according to the WHO and the World Bank.
• South Korea will use AI-powered facial recognition technology to keep track of COVID-19 cases.