The Prime Minister has admitted that the Omicron strain is “obviously milder than the Delta variant” and told the public that they should enjoy New Year’s Eve, burdened by as few restrictions as possible. However, Boris has also urged people to be “cautious and sensible” and urged everyone to get jabbed. MailOnline has more.
Boris Johnson today gave the green light for people to celebrate on New Year’s Eve but urged the nation to be “cautious and sensible”.
The Prime Minister said he believes “everybody should enjoy New Year” despite the spread of the Omicron variant.
He said the strain ‘continues to cause real problems’, with hospitalisations rising, but the data shows it is ‘obviously milder than the Delta variant’.
Johnson said the booster jab rollout means England does not currently need new Covid restrictions, despite Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all imposing new rules on socialising.
The premier today repeated his plea to the nation to get boosted as he warned that 90% of Covid patients in intensive care units across the country had not received the top-up dose…
Johnson has promised that there will be no new Covid rules in England before New Year’s Eve.
His decision not to roll out extra curbs is in contrast to the actions taken in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland where additional restrictions have been imposed after Christmas.
The Prime Minister said this morning during a visit to a vaccination centre in Milton Keynes that the vaccination programme meant “we are able to proceed in the way that we are”.
He said: “The Omicron variant continues to cause real problems. We are seeing cases rising in hospitals but it is obviously milder than the Delta variant and we are able to proceed in the way that we are.
“But there is one reason and one reason only why we are able to do that and that is because such a huge proportion of the British public have come forward to get vaccinated and particularly to get boosted.
“We have done about 32 and a half, maybe more, million booster jabs now and that is allowing us to go ahead with New Year in the cautious way that we are.
“But I cannot stress too much how vital it is for everybody to get that booster jab, particularly the 2.4 million people who have had two jabs but haven’t yet had their booster, they had two jabs more than six or seven months ago, so they are eligible for their booster but they are not yet coming forward to get it.
“So I would say to people, come forward and get your booster, it is a fantastic thing to do, it makes a huge amount of difference to you, it protects you, and I’m sorry to say this but the overwhelming majority of people who are currently ending up in intensive care in our hospitals are people who are not boosted.
“I have talked to doctors who say the numbers are running up to 90% of people in intensive care who are not boosted.
“If you are not vaccinated you are eight times more likely to get into hospital altogether.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Boris Johnson said that 90% of Covid patients in ICU are unvaccinated, a claim that may be true but isn’t supported by any of the publicly available date. Read Will Jones’s recent piece looking at what the published data says about the ratio of unvaccinated to vaccinated patients in hospital here.
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