Last week, the Cabinet decided to wait for a week before imposing any more Covid-19 restrictions for England. I understand that there was a meeting today between Boris Johnson, Sajid Javid, Chris Whitty, UKHSA’s Jenny Harries and others in which they agreed to wait another week and see the results of the booster programme. This means no further measures until at least the new year, and perhaps not even then.
The last week of data vindicated the wait-and-see decision taken last Monday as it emerged..
- That UK Omicron could be 70 per cent less likely to hospitalise those it infects
- Cases in South Africa are now falling fast, especially in the epicentre of Gauteng province
- UK cases are still rising, especially in London, but hospital numbers do not (yet) show the NHS will be at risk of being overwhelmed
- Some 29 per cent of Covid patients in hospital picked up the virus in hospital
- The proportion of hospital patients in ICU has fallen to its lowest level since the pandemic.
NHS data is always hard to interpret over Christmas: normally there’s a dip on Christmas day followed by a Boxing Day bounce. But overall, I understand that those at today’s meeting agreed that data makes the case for continued caution over lockdown with no decision needed until Monday 3 January.
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