Expert says it ‘looks like Omicron has peaked’

Written by The Daily Mail on December 22, 2021. Posted in Current News

Britain’s daily Covid cases have plateaued for the fifth day in a row as an expert claimed that the Omicron wave may have peaked already.

There were 90,629 infections in the past 24 hours across the UK, up 52 per cent on last Tuesday’s toll but down slightly on the figure yesterday — despite wild projections of up to a million daily infections by New Year.

Cases have remained flat since last Friday when they hit a peak of more than 93,000.

The slowing statistics may be behind Boris Johnson‘s decision not to bring any tougher restrictions before Christmas, claiming there was ‘not enough evidence to justify‘ them.

Gloomy Government modelling presented to ministers last week said the mutant variant was doubling every two days and was infecting up to 400,000 daily by the weekend.

Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious diseases expert at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline that Mr Johnson had made the right decision as he slammed the modelling.

He said:

‘It’s not all doom and gloom, it does look like Omicron has stopped growing. The numbers over the last few days seem to have plateaued and maybe even be falling.

‘It’s a bit too soon to be absolutely sure about that, but if it is the case Boris Johnson will breathe a sigh of relief. We have to be a little bit careful because it’s only a few days.

‘And because we’re getting closer to Christmas there is nervousness that people may not come forward for testing because they don’t want to test positive and miss out on meeting relatives.

‘Omicron overtook the other variants around December 14 so most of any changes from there on would be down to Omicron. So if it was still doubling every two days that would have shown and we should have been at 200,000 cases yesterday and certainly more than 200,000 cases today.

‘But the fact it has been around 91,000 raises the point that it might actually have peaked. But it will probably take until at least Wednesday to get an idea of a day that is not affected by the weekend. But I am more optimistic than I was a few days ago.

There were 1.49million tests conducted today which is down from 1.56 million last Wednesday, but Professor Hunter said the ‘relatively small drop’ in testing would not hide a virus truly doubling every two days.

Latest hospital figures show there were 847 Covid admissions on December 17, up only seven percent on the previous week. There were a further 172 Covid deaths today, up 14 per cent.

In epicentre London the wave also appears to be slowing after 20,491 cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, down slightly on yesterday’s tally of 22,750. It also marked the sixth day in a row cases have been above 20,000.

Hospitalisations in the capital are rising with another 245 registered today, up 56 per cent in a week, but MailOnline analysis showed up to a quarter of these are not primarily Covid.  

It comes as Nicola Sturgeon today ramped up the pressure on Boris Johnson to act and impose more Covid curbs after Covid curbs after announcing her own raft of restrictions to halt the spread of the Omicron variant.

The First Minister said that from December 26 for three weeks there will be attendance limits in place for public events putting millions of people’s New Year plans in jeopardy.

She added that from December 27 Scots would also be advised to limit their social contact ‘as much as you possible can’, while table service-only requirements will be reimposed for venues serving alcohol.

Case numbers are still well below the biased projections of gloomy Government modelling which had predicted up to 400,000 infections a day last week, a million by the peak this winter, which has led to fury from experts and MPs over the reliability of the data.

The South African doctors who identified it have insisted for weeks that Omicron is milder since raising the alarm about it on November 24th.

A row erupted yesterday over modelling that had appeared to raise the threat of Christmas being ‘cancelled’ for a second year in a row.

In forecasts leaked over the weekend, the SAGE expert committee warned that without rapid action daily deaths could hit 6,000 in the worst case — and hospital admissions 10,000.

But with huge uncertainty over the severity of Omicron, ministers, MPs and experts rejected the ‘implausible‘ predictions.

Tory former leader Iain Duncan Smith referred to SAGE modeller Graham Medley as ‘Graham Meddler’ during an interview BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, although it was not clear if it was a slip of the tongue.

Criticising blood-curdling claims of up to 6,000 deaths a day if there are no addition restrictions, Mr Duncan Smith said the government should only make a decision based on a ‘wider range of information on the effect of lockdown’.

‘We need to understand the effect of lockdown is dramatic across so many areas of people’s lives, which equates to the same as people going into hospital,’ he said.

See more here: dailymail.co.uk

Header image showing daily deaths have not increased: BBC

Bold emphasis added

Editor’s note: In what may be one of his few moments of being truthful, Anthony Fauci said a couple days ago that Omicron cases would rise fast, and decline equally fast. Could we be seeing the start of that fall in the UK?

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