Amid a record rise in daily cases in the United Kingdom — 129,471 reported on Tuesday in England and Wales alone — scientists are at odds about how to deal with Omicron and its rapid spread..While a UK leading immunologist says high COVID-19 death rates are “now history,” other scientists are criticizing the government’s decision to not introduce further restrictions..Sir John Bell, an Oxford University professor of medicine and the government’s life sciences advisor, said even though hospitalization admissions are up as Omicron spreads, the virus “appears to be less severe and many people spend a relatively short time in hospital.”.But other scientists have expressed concern over the government’s lack of response and fear Omicron, although milder but more transmissible, could overwhelm hospitals without intervention, as reported in The Guardian..Chris Hopson, chief executive at The National Health Service (NHS) Provider, said it is unclear how things will look if infection rates rise in older people..“We’ve had a lot of intergenerational mixing over Christmas, so we all are still waiting to see, are we going to see a significant number of increases in terms of the number of patients coming into hospital with serious Omicron-related disease,” Hopson told the BBC..Also causing a strain on health services in the UK are health staff absences due to workers testing positive and needing to isolate. “Worst case scenario” predictions from experts say up to 40% of medical staff in London could be off work due to Omicron..Environment secretary George Eustice said the government is keeping COVID-19 hospitalizations under “very close review.”.“There is early encouragement from what we know in South Africa that you have fewer hospitalizations and that the number of days that they stay in hospital if they do go into hospital is also lower than in previous variants,” Eustice told the BBC..“At the moment we don’t think that the evidence supports any more interventions beyond what we have done. But obviously, we have got to keep it under very close review, because if it is the case that we started to see a big increase in hospitalizations then we would need to act further.”.Simon Clarke, an associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said the latest data was incomplete and did not include samples taken between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day..“While nobody wants to live under tighter controls, the public needs to realize that if we end up with a significant problem of hospitalizations and mass sickness, it will be worse than if authorities had acted earlier,” said Clarke following the government’s announcement on Monday..Paul Hunter, another professor of medicine out of the University of East Anglia, said he believes people should soon be able to return to their normal lives and treat COVID-19 as if it were a common cold..“This is a disease that’s not going away. Ultimately, we’re going to have to let people who are positive with COVID go about their normal lives as they would do with any other cold,” Hunter told the BBC..“COVID is only one virus of a family of coronaviruses, and the other coronaviruses throw off new variants typically every year or so, and that’s almost certainly what’s going to happen with COVID. It will become effectively just another cause of the common cold.”.Melanie Risdon is a reporter with the Western Standard.,.mrisdon@westernstandardonline.com
Amid a record rise in daily cases in the United Kingdom — 129,471 reported on Tuesday in England and Wales alone — scientists are at odds about how to deal with Omicron and its rapid spread..While a UK leading immunologist says high COVID-19 death rates are “now history,” other scientists are criticizing the government’s decision to not introduce further restrictions..Sir John Bell, an Oxford University professor of medicine and the government’s life sciences advisor, said even though hospitalization admissions are up as Omicron spreads, the virus “appears to be less severe and many people spend a relatively short time in hospital.”.But other scientists have expressed concern over the government’s lack of response and fear Omicron, although milder but more transmissible, could overwhelm hospitals without intervention, as reported in The Guardian..Chris Hopson, chief executive at The National Health Service (NHS) Provider, said it is unclear how things will look if infection rates rise in older people..“We’ve had a lot of intergenerational mixing over Christmas, so we all are still waiting to see, are we going to see a significant number of increases in terms of the number of patients coming into hospital with serious Omicron-related disease,” Hopson told the BBC..Also causing a strain on health services in the UK are health staff absences due to workers testing positive and needing to isolate. “Worst case scenario” predictions from experts say up to 40% of medical staff in London could be off work due to Omicron..Environment secretary George Eustice said the government is keeping COVID-19 hospitalizations under “very close review.”.“There is early encouragement from what we know in South Africa that you have fewer hospitalizations and that the number of days that they stay in hospital if they do go into hospital is also lower than in previous variants,” Eustice told the BBC..“At the moment we don’t think that the evidence supports any more interventions beyond what we have done. But obviously, we have got to keep it under very close review, because if it is the case that we started to see a big increase in hospitalizations then we would need to act further.”.Simon Clarke, an associate professor in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said the latest data was incomplete and did not include samples taken between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day..“While nobody wants to live under tighter controls, the public needs to realize that if we end up with a significant problem of hospitalizations and mass sickness, it will be worse than if authorities had acted earlier,” said Clarke following the government’s announcement on Monday..Paul Hunter, another professor of medicine out of the University of East Anglia, said he believes people should soon be able to return to their normal lives and treat COVID-19 as if it were a common cold..“This is a disease that’s not going away. Ultimately, we’re going to have to let people who are positive with COVID go about their normal lives as they would do with any other cold,” Hunter told the BBC..“COVID is only one virus of a family of coronaviruses, and the other coronaviruses throw off new variants typically every year or so, and that’s almost certainly what’s going to happen with COVID. It will become effectively just another cause of the common cold.”.Melanie Risdon is a reporter with the Western Standard.,.mrisdon@westernstandardonline.com
