The U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has advised the Government that “stringent national measures” should be imposed by December 18th to stop the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, and ensure that the NHS is not overrun by Covid hospital admissions. Health Secretary Sajid Javid was warned by the UKHSA that, although the new variant appears to be less dangerous than the Delta strain, 5,000 people a day could be hospitalised because of the virus, and that further restrictions may have to come sooner rather than later. The Guardian has the story.
Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, received a presentation from the UKHSA on Tuesday warning that even if the new Omicron variant leads to less serious disease than Delta, it risks overwhelming the NHS with 5,000 people admitted to hospital a day.
In an interview with the Guardian, the epidemiologist Professor Neil Ferguson said the total could be double that number.
No 10 insisted there were no imminent plans to bring in more measures after ‘Plan B’ measures were announced for England this week but Michael Gove, who chaired a Cobra meeting on Friday, said the Government had been presented with some “very challenging information” about the speed of the spread.
The Guardian has seen leaked advice from UKHSA for Javid marked “official, sensitive” saying: “The key point is that under a range of plausible scenarios, stringent action is needed on or before December 18th, 2021, if doubling times stay at 2.5 days. Even if doubling times rise to around 5 days, stringent action is likely still needed in December.”
It adds: “The rapid spread of Omicron means that action to limit pressures on the health system might have to come earlier than intuition suggests.” Its calculations suggest that even if Omicron causes a less severe hospitalisation rate of 1% or 0.5% compared with Delta’s 1.5%, then “stringent national measures” would be needed by December 18th at the latest.
On the current trajectory of 2.5 days doubling time, and without any further restrictions, the document warns that Omicron cases could be at 248,000 cases a day by December 19th. It also stresses that the figures are not a projection but an estimate of Omicron prevalence and doubling times seen in the U.K. so far.
The document does not detail what the necessary curbs would be but defines “stringent national measures” as those that bring the R number below one.
Boris Johnson triggered ‘Plan B’ this week including more wide-ranging mask mandates, asking people to work from home and Covid passports for big venues but a senior Whitehall source said few inside UKHSA believe this will have much effect on slowing the spread of the variant.
Further measures, now being referred to as ‘Plan C’, could include stricter isolation requirements for contacts of Covid cases, masks in pubs, shutting hospitality entirely, more restrictions on visitors to care homes and hospitals or even the return of curbs on social contact.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Good grief, this idiot is going to end up taking us into a war by his stupidity.
Caution, Brain free zone.
He’s as dangerous and as mad as Bunter and Cameron isn’t he.
A whole lot worse.
Clarification? It seems clear enough to me. The man is an idiot. A further example of him meddling in issues he knows nothing about – though in this case he’s supposed to know something about it as it’s his ministerial responsibility.
War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength.
Nagorno-Karabakh is liberated.
Seriously, this man should be removed from representing this country. It is now beyond embarrassing and the potential for a serious diplomatic incident cannot be ruled out. One can only hope that his ignorance is now so obvious to all that those affected by his comments will make allowances for his lamentable grasp of geopolitics.
…
will make allowances for his lamentable grasp of geopolitics.“…will make allowances for his lamentable grasp of basic knowledge and common sense.”
With all due respect but we might as well be blunt and say it how it is.
…. or perhaps use the phrase which my long deceased father-in-law used to describe other drivers who annoyed him (in a broad Mancunian accent) – ‘Berking Twithead’!
We know why he was chosen and it certainly wasn’t for his intellect!
The ‘cleansing’ of Christians from their enclave in Muslim Azerbaijan was merely a continuation of the ‘cleansing’ of non-muslims, primarily Christians & Jews that has been going on for over a century.
You don’t have to go back very far to find that Christians made up about a 3rd of many middle Eastern countries. Even in countries such as Egypt Christians constituted about 25% of the population.
Population in the region throws up some interesting points. Who would have thought that in Israel & the Palestinian Territories there are about 7.2m Jews & 7.1m Arabs, & a further 0.5m Christians.
A mixing of terms there. I assume you mean that the 7.1m Arabs are all Muslims?
Jews and Christians are members of religious groups and not necessarily of a particular ethnicity. ‘Arab’ is a purely ethnic term – though there are many different ethnic sub-groups.
Jews are a race; there are very few who follow the religion of Judaism who are not also Jews but they are not the same thing. There are plenty of non-religious Jews.
I’d disagree with you on jews being a race its a religion however as you say not all jews are religious but the same could be said for every religion!
Are Eastern European Khazarians part of the Jewish ‘race’? They don’t look like they are descended from the Levant..
Was 100 percent Christian until Islam came along and forcibly converted or killed the Christians of the middle east. The crusades were a long overdue response to religious invaders.
Why is the Labour party so chock bang full of Gobs on Legs with no brain cell to share between them?
Lammy is an antisemitic racist. Who is responsible for putting him in arguably the most important position in Government? The man is a walking time bomb.
Rayner is a foul-mouthed thief.
Two-Tier is a money-grubbing disgrace to himself, let alone to the country. What kind of person, let alone a multi-millionaire, whines they wouldn’t be able to watch football without freebies? How come the future King and his son sit in the stands at Villa Park. Bring on the pictures of Arsenal v Villa.
If the world thought Biden embarrassing wait until they pick up on this lot!
I very confidently give Reeves 10 months, Two-Tier 2 Years before his party kick him out. They will have no choice, he is fast heading towards the most unpopular leader ever, even eclipsing a PM who sent British troops to die. It really is that serious.
“Two-Tier is a money-grubbing disgrace to himself, let alone to the
country. What kind of person, let alone a multi-millionaire, whines they
wouldn’t be able to watch football without freebies?”
Two Tier Starmer is so last week as is “Kier Starmer, Granny Harmer”.
His new name in the hood is: “Free Gear Starmer”.
Free Gear Two-Tier Kier
I’m also shocked at how completely clueless and dangerous these imbeciles are and the sooner they are removed the better for our country.
At least you know and expect this sort of thing from Labour. It’s those Janus faced, fakeTories that are worse than rats.
Lammy is just sticking to the woke script: Muslims did this to Christians. Hence, it must have been a good thing. Whatever it was.
Two Lammy pieces in fairly close succession is too much to bear. Do you remember the Spitting Image sketch in the 80s about Reagan? The President has lost his brain? Did our For Sec ever have one I wonder?
The man’s an utter cretin and a dangerous liability.
Its simple really, in order to lose something you have to have one to start with!
He doesn’t need to retract his statement or issue a clarification.
He needs to expletive deleted well resign, and pronto.
He is a national and international laughing stock, a man of peerless stupity even in 2tk’s cabinet of imbeciles.
Go for heavens sake GO!
Come on, 2TStarmer should sack him, but he won’t! To do so would be racist!
What this country desperately needs is a “fit for office” test.
Lammy would certainly fail almost any device to measure this.
It is now abundantly clear that Kneel was told who to give which job to whom on the basis that they are wholly unsuited to the roles they have been given.
Lammy – so utterly thick that he doesn’t know which order 7 an 8 belong in, wholly ignorant of British history and with a gob as big as the Mersey Tunnel such that a major diplomatic incident is a case of when not if.
Ranting Rayner – in charge of housing. She who stole off taxpayers via a housing deal. Streetwise but also utterly thick.
Robber Reeves – ex Bank of England (brewer up presumably
) as Treasurer. We couldn’t make this up.
On and on it goes – Miilibrain etc. Most of the current lot could outdo Abbacus Abbott in the absence of grey matter.
i think Azerbiyan is one of the places Blair advised on how to get western support.
Good. We should follow his advice and start with him.
Lame-brain Lammy’s future is on the speech making circuit – “how I started WWIII” plus his ever popular party piece, “Kings and Queens of England (in reverse order)”.
He looks a bit like a Sontaran warrior in this picture but the Sontarans are courageous and honourable so maybe not…
I think he looks more like Jabba the Hutt.
Well spotted
Similar moral sense too
Enough. This is the UK foreign secretary you’re talking about. One of the top cabinet positions. How on Earth would he have got the job if he wasn’t amazing at thinking?
Hilarious!
!
Here’s an idea for the next cabinet reshuffle….
Lammy for education secretary
Is Lammy being unbelievably stupid and ignorant or does he actually think it’s a good thing for Nagorno-Karabakh to be ethnically cleansed (and Armenia also at risk)? Could he really be this ignorant? If so, why on earth is he in the position he is?
You’d think the primary quality the Foreign Secretary should demonstrate is diplomacy.
Free Gear Keir has appointed a loudmouth bigot, who’s an embarrassment to the country.
Lammy Didn’t Earn It.
Lammy is a great example of why immigration is a really bad idea. He is thick as mince. His best role would be as burger flipper in McDonalds.
This government is riven with stupid, ignorant idiot communists. In fact, I reckon most of them are so thick, they don’t even understand communism.
The only useful role Lammy has is to make the rest of his colleagues feel superior!
I’m still struggling to believe this! You’ll know the feeling when your mind takes time to absorb information and you get waves of disbelief.
Before his appointment to this intellectually demanding position it was already known be was an idiot. Only an imbecile would put him into this role.
Lammy’s a national embarrassment on the world stage. Not in my name, doesn’t represent my views, looks like an imposter, an utter shambles of a man in a government of similar talent.
God help us all – what chance do we have with such low quality ‘politicians’ as this current lot! I have never felt so fearful for our future
Sadly our future was just as grim under the Tories
And has Welby come out in defence of Armenian Christians ??