The U.K. Health Security Agency, the successor organisation to Public Health England, is about to publish its first detailed analysis of Omicron which suggests it causes milder disease than the Delta variant. This will be helpful to those of us trying to persuade the Prime Minister not to impose any further restrictions, including half the Cabinet. The Telegraph has more.
The omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the delta strain in most Britons, government scientists are expected to say today.
The U.K. Health Security Agency is set to publish real-world data on the severity of the disease, which is expected to say that more people are likely to have a mild illness with less serious symptoms.
The political site Politico reported the findings this morning. It says that while omicron seems milder overall, the UKHSA has found it is not necessarily mild enough to avoid large numbers of hospitalisations. The experts have found evidence that for those who do become severely ill, there is still a high chance of hospitalisation and death.
Given that the transmissibility of omicron is very high, there is the chance that even though it is milder, infections could soar to the point that large numbers end up in hospital .
On Wednesday, the health minister Gillian Keegan said there were 129 people in hospital with omicron and there had been 14 deaths. Asked on Sky News whether a circuit breaker lockdown could happen after Christmas, she said: “We are waiting for data on the severity, we’ll still have to wait to see where we land on that, but we can’t really say, you know.
“What we’ve said is up to Christmas we’re fine looking at the data, looking at the numbers we have at the moment, but, of course, we have to look at where this virus goes, where this variant goes, so we have to look at that data.”
Boris and his health ministers have consistently said they’ll be guided by the evidence about Omicron and won’t make a decision about whether to impose tighter rules after Christmas until they have more data. Well, now they have, and it suggests the SAGE modellers have got their predictions wrong – again. You can follow updates on the Telegraph’s live blog and read the scoop in Politico here.
MailOnline has also written about the forthcoming UKHSA report and points out that official figures yesterday revealed that Covid was mentioned on 764 death certificates registered in England and Wales in the week to December 10th – 4% down from the previous week and the lowest level since October. It also has an interview with a medical professor who says it looks like Omicron daily infections are flatlining.
Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious diseases expert at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline that Mr. Johnson had made the right decision as he slammed the modelling.
He said: “It’s not all doom and gloom, it does look like Omicron has stopped growing. The numbers over the last few days seem to have plateaued and maybe even be falling.
“It’s a bit too soon to be absolutely sure about that, but if it is the case Boris Johnson will breathe a sigh of relief. We have to be a little bit careful because it’s only a few days.
“And because we’re getting closer to Christmas there is nervousness that people may not come forward for testing because they don’t want to test positive and miss out on meeting relatives.
“Omicron overtook the other variants around December 14 so most of any changes from there on would be down to Omicron. So if it was still doubling every two days that would have shown and we should have been at 200,000 cases yesterday and certainly more than 200,000 cases today.
“But the fact it has been around 91,000 raises the point that it might actually have peaked. But it will probably take until at least Wednesday to get an idea of a day that is not affected by the weekend. But I am more optimistic than I was a few days ago.
There were 1.49million tests conducted today which is down from 1.56 million last Wednesday, but Professor Hunter said the “relatively small drop” in testing would not hide a virus truly doubling every two days.
Latest hospital figures show there were 847 Covid admissions on December 17, up only 7% on the previous week. There were a further 172 Covid deaths today, up 14%.
In epicentre London the wave also appears to be slowing after 20,491 cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, down slightly on yesterday’s tally of 22,750. It also marked the sixth day in a row cases have been above 20,000.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The self-isolation period has been cut from 10 to seven days, yet more evidence that the authorities know Omicron is milder than previous variants. The Telegraph has more.
Stop Press: A new study by the Scotland-wide Early Pandemic Evaluation and Enhanced Surveillance of COVID-19 suggests people who catch Omicron have a two-thirds lower risk of hospitalisation compared to people who catch Delta. The Telegraph has more.
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OK, Watson and Abrahamovitch, what have you personally done since February 2020 to try to fight the fear-mongering and hysteria that allows the regime to get away with these impositions?
With a few very honourable exceptions, industry and business have done nothing to resist, but plenty of whining about getting taxpayer subsidies for themselves. If you’re among the aforementioned noble exceptions, fine, but otherwise, go put some money and influence behind campaigns resisting the fearmongering, and have some words in politicians’ ears about how you’ll support their rivals if they don’t back off.
Luke Johnson, Hugh Osmond and to an extent Tim Martin. Can’t think of anyone else, though I expect there are a few more, but not many.
Grind will be Ground Down. Sorry.
Agreed…I said this last year….last year for goodness sake…… I’m doing my bit, if you want me in your pub, do yours. Do what the Co-Op did, if they make masks mandatory in pubs don’t enforce it…..if they want QR codes, don’t enforce it, same with vax pass…put your heads on the block like the rest of us and stand up and fight. If you don’t you’re going out of business anyway…I will never use a ‘pass’ of any kind for a pint, it’s cheaper to go to the supermarket, and I can drink in my jammies!
Stories about pubs closing are sad indication of the symptoms but not the cause. This site needs to step up on the causes and stop pretending it’s some bumbling idiots being overly cautious. What is happening is deliberate and evil. They push until they hit protest, then push some more stupid rules, then stop for a while and now are pushing again. Wake up. This is disproportionate bullshit. Enough. Take action yourselves, no white-knight is coming to help, do not comply with any of it, no masks, no showing your jab status if you’ve been jabbed, no taking tests to get into places. Enough. Do not consent to this system of coercive control. Look where we’ve come from to where we are now. And for what? Is it proportionate? No, it’s not. It’s got to stop, now! Toby you’ve done a great job in setting this site up but events risk overwhelming the original purpose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL00v2YjWKI
As Boris says the jabs don’t stop you catching it and don’t stop you spreading it.
If a venue requires testing then EVERYONE needs to be tested the vaxpass is pointless.
Wonder why no journalist has not asked him this obvious question?
I would love to believe this but unfortunately it is not. Every country is moving in lockstep and the evil is in the smartphone. Show me a society that bans QR codes and I will believe this is a cock-up, until then it is evil.
I work as a family photographer for Americans on vacation. As you can imagine with restrictions on travel, lollipop rules and things to do when in London and enjoy time with loved ones (especially when they can go to Florida) has cut my earnings off dramatically.
Even the coffee shops, bars and restaurants families would regularly visit aren’t the same anymore. The staff have changed, nobody knows each other by name. Funny, as when Brexit began my trade actually went up, it was the coof that killed 90% of the foot-flow in Westminster and 80% around Tower Bridge.
Good time to buy commercial real estate I guess if you know what I mean. Especially when interest rates are so low. It times nicely with excessive money printing and higher ups access to free/cheap money.
PS. The Stafford Hotel, Claridges, The Connaught and The Ritz will be fine as they don’t need to make money to stay open. They are trophy assets for Middle Eastern Investment vehicles on behalf of the Royal families.
Middle Eastern and Oriental. The Yuan buys you a lot these days, and with containers coming into the UK full and going back empty, on what else are they going to spend all the money we send them? Not goods and services, that’s for sure.
It isn’t only pubs.
Don’t forget us folks, training companies who deliver face to face training.
Zoom sessions are no substitute for personal interaction. As the lead in training the defence industry in the management of large, complex project lifecycles we haven’t worked since February 2020. This evil policy has killed our business that took 20 years to build up.
When we’re gone, we’re gone, and we’ll take our wisdom and experience with us.
And by the way, WFH is a con. Used in an isolated and exceptional manner it can work, but must not become the norm, a skiver’s charter.
One of the many things the technocrats want to do is to prevent you from meeting other people in order to stop you plotting against them and their fascist schemes, technocracy is in effect digital slavery.
The police and crimes bill will prevent you from doing this in protests (effectively making them illegal – except for global warming protests of course). The online harms bill will prevent ‘virtual’ meetings in sites such as this, and killing the hospitality industry will prevent you from meeting like minded people down the pub. It is all part of the plan.
Later on they will introduce stringent travel restrictions (again in the name of preventing man made global warming) which will prevent you travelling more than a few miles from your designated place of residence and further restrict the possibility of human contact and spread of information contrary to the agenda.
Sir Kneel Starmer is a fully paid up member of the technocrats club and therefore probably public enemy #1, Bojo isn’t quite sure what he is except a tool for others to easily manipulate (or perhaps just a tool).
The net tightens but still the fish swim round in circles.
Are there any pub calendars for 2022 where they show everyone inside standing up wearing face masks, and everyone seated not wearing a face mask, in the interest of preventing the spread of a highly contagious virus during a pandemic?
https://www.rosecalendars.co.uk/olde-worlde-inns-calendar
Didn’t most office work outside London get farmed out to out of town office parks? Do shop workers not eat lunch or can they not afford to eat out?
All going as planned, then?