Hospitalisation rates 90% lower with Omicron
‘Encouraging signs’
OMICRON patients are 90 per cent less likely to be hospitalised than those with other variants as long as they are boosted, the Health Secretary said yesterday.
Sajid Javid said the variant was ‘less severe intrinsically’ than other strains, with ministers increasingly confident no further restrictions will be needed.
Leading scientists said because Omicron is significantly milder we can ‘now guarantee’ it will not lead to a surge in deaths.
And there are signs the current wave may already have peaked as the increase in cases has now fallen for three consecutive days. Some 178,250 cases were recorded in the UK yesterday – down from a peak of 218,724 on January 4.
Meanwhile, the number of Covid patients in London hospitals is falling for the first time in a month.
Yesterday it also emerged that nearly four in ten patients in hospital with Covid are being treated primarily for a different illness. In the Midlands, only 55 per cent of hospital patients who have tested positive were admitted because of the virus.
Mr Javid said the NHS has a ‘rocky few weeks ahead’ but there are ‘encouraging signs’.
He added: ‘We know now that Omicron is less severe intrinsically. Once you get boosted your chance of hospitalisation is almost 90 per cent less than what it was.’
On a visit to King’s College Hospital in south-east London, Mr Javid said: ‘We are in a stronger position than we were last year thanks to the vaccinations and testing.’
He added: ‘The best thing anyone can do if they haven’t already is get boosted or get your first or second jab if you haven’t had one.’
Mr Javid said around 70 per cent of patients in intensive care with Covid are unvaccinated – though they make up only 10 per cent of the population. So far 61 per cent of the UK has had a booster dose.
Latest analysis by the UK Health Security Agency shows that three doses provides 88 per cent protection against hospitalisation. Yesterday, 229 people died with Covid in the UK. Deaths have remained low in the Omicron wave and are averaging 131 a day, compared with 1,200 at the peak.
Yesterday, Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, head of statistics at Cambridge University, said there is unlikely to be a surge in deaths or severe illness.
He told the BBC: ‘There’s still no sign of a serious increase in intensive care and ventilation, and deaths.
‘We would have expected to see that by now in London and elsewhere – so that is the really reassuring thing. I think we can guarantee that over this wave, as we endure the next few weeks, what we’re not going to see is a big surge in very severe outcomes.’
Scientists believe Omicron could be even less deadly than flu – and could therefore mark the end of the pandemic.
Covid killed one in 33 people who tested positive at the peak of the devastating second wave last January, compared with one in 670 now.