London, December 26 / BNA / Britain announced on Friday that it had recorded record cases of the Covid-19 virus, with new estimates showing that large areas of London’s population carry the virus, confirming the rapid progress of the Omicron variable.
Omicron’s rapid spread has led to an increase in the number of cases over the past seven days, especially in the capital.
On Friday, models from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that about 1 in 20 Londoners will likely have COVID-19 on December 16, and early estimates – which can be revised so far – suggest this may have risen to 1 out of every 10 on Sunday, Reuters reported.
Many industries and transport networks are grappling with staff shortages as sick workers self-isolate, while hospitals in Britain have warned of the risk of impacting patient safety.
However, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who bet large political capital on Christmas 2021 to be “much better” than the previous year, on Tuesday ruled out new restrictions ahead of the same day, saying there was uncertainty about Omicron’s seriousness and hospitalization rates.
Government data showed that the number of new cases reached 122,186, up from 119,789 on Thursday, which marks the third day of cases exceeding 100,000.
While recent research on Omicron indicates that it has a lower hospitalization rate than earlier variants of COVID-19, health officials have maintained a cautious note about the outlook.
Jenny Harris, head of the UK’s Health Security Agency, told the BBC: “There is a glimmer of hope at Christmas … but it is certainly not yet at the point where we can reduce this serious threat.”
“What we’ve got now is a really good balance between something that looks like a lower risk of hospitalization – which is good news – but it’s also a highly transmissible variant and one that we know avoids some of our immune defences.”
On Friday, the government reported 137 new deaths within 28 days of testing positive for COVID-19, down from 147 on Thursday, bringing the total during the pandemic to 147,857 – the highest in Europe.
The prevalence has increased across the UK, the Office for National Statistics said, with Scotland showing the lowest infection rate at 1 in 65 people on December 19.
Estimates from the Office for National Statistics showed that about 1 in 35 people in England – the equivalent of 1.54 million people – contracted COVID-19 in the six days to 19 December.
Early modeling of later days suggested it could have risen to more than 2 million people on Sunday, or about 1 in 25.
HF