BBC reporting suggests we are even stevens aganist Covid as we go into the Christmas period. Contracting Covid is now being reported as a daily occurrence amongst my friends and business acquaintances but I am not aware of any who are in hospital or worse.
We hit 106,000 reported cases yesterday, some estimates of the real numbers infected suggest ten times that number. This short blog asks questions about how we feel about the current situation. But first the latest information on Omicron’s impact.
Early data from South Africa and studies in England and Scotland published on Wednesday suggest Omicron infections may be milder and lead to fewer hospital admissions.
Analysis by researchers at Imperial College London found around a 40% reduction in the risk of being admitted to hospital for a night or more compared with Delta, while an Edinburgh University study suggested there was a 65% lower risk of being hospitalised with Omicron – but it was based on only a few cases.
In South Africa, a study suggested Omicron patients were 70-80% less likely to need hospital treatment. However, it suggested there was no difference in outcomes for the few patients that ended up in hospital with Omicron.
Imperial College epidemiologist Prof Neil Ferguson said the research was “clearly good news to a degree”.
However, he warned the reduction was “not sufficient to dramatically change the modelling” and the speed that Omicron is spreading could still mean hospitalisations “in numbers that could put the NHS in a difficult position”
Last night I was in the West End dining at a restaraunt where not one table was empty. The darts at Ally Pally continues to sell out, football games were attended as if th Covid count was zero.
If we are in a crisis, this seems a strange way to carry on.
I’d be interested in your views. Are we winning, losing or ending for a draw with the lergy?
Should we bring on extra defenders or go all out for a win?…… or are we happy with a point?
I fear that the NHS may still be overwhelmed despite this good news.
It seems that hope/evidence of lower hospitalisations than first feared from omicron and the success of the vaccination campaign have led to the decision to keep restrictions as they are for a while but this ignores the huge problem of case numbers rocketing so that a large proportion of hospital staff will either be infected or have to self-isolate as a precaution and not be available.
Omicron may have less serious consequences for an individual but it seems it is more infectious and vaccine resistant, even after boosting, so may have very serious consequences for anyone needing treatment be it for Covid, a motorbike crash, stroke or heart attack.