One Million Brits May Spend Christmas Day in Self-Isolation

Due to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, combined with the rules put in place to tackle its spread, the Government suspects that up to four times as many people will have to self-isolate on Christmas Day compared with last year. Furthermore, current statistical forecasts predict that close to one million Brits will be forced to stay at home come December 25th. RT has more.

Anyone in the U.K. who tests positive for Covid from Wednesday onwards will have to spend Christmas Day in isolation under current Government regulations. The rules issued by the U.K. Health Security Agency demand that anyone who gets a positive test goes into quarantine for 10 days. If that person then develops any Covid symptoms during this period, they will have to spend another 10 days in isolation, starting from the day the symptoms first appeared.
The Government believes there might be four times as many people self-isolating this Christmas Day than on December 25, 2020. The total number of Omicron cases reported in the U.K. rose from 4,713 to 5,346 over the past 24 hours, with 633 new infections linked to the highly transmissible new strain.
The overall number of new daily infections amounted to 59,610 and has gone up by more than 30% in just a week. This is the highest such figure since January, when almost 60,000 new cases were reported. At this rate, the U.K. may see some 100,000 people infected with Omicron on Christmas Eve, and around one million Brits isolating the next day, media projections say, using the Government data.
Omicron appears to be “the most significant threat we have had since the start of the pandemic”, Dr. Jenny Harries, CEO of the U.K. Health Security Agency, told MPs on Wednesday, adding that the time taken for the number of new Omicron infections to double “is shortening”. Earlier, England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, also warned that the new strain is spreading “unbelievably fast”.

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