On Monday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed the country’s first death of a person with the variant. He told reporters at a vaccination clinic: “I think the idea that it’s somehow just a milder version of the virus, I think it’s something that we need to set aside and just go at that rapid pace.” has to identify at which point it accelerates through the population.”
The United Kingdom raised its COVID-19 alert level on Sunday and is once again accelerating the rollout of booster jabs in an effort to respond to a new wave of cases.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid warned on Monday that the Omicron infection figures are in contrast to the earlier variants.
“It’s spreading at an unprecedented rate, something we’ve never seen before – it’s doubling every two to three days in infections,” Javid told Sky News on Monday. He said it was too early to tell whether the cases in the new version were minor.
“It means we are facing a tidal wave of infections, we are once again in a race between the vaccine and the virus,” he said, referring to the language used by Johnson in a televised address Sunday night. echo.
On Sunday, the prime minister set a new target of giving all adults a third shot by the end of December – a month ahead of the original plan. They had previously reduced the interval between the second and third doses from six months to three. The British government has focused its COVID response around the vaccine program since last summer, and was opposed to reimposing restrictions until the Omicron version came to light.
“No one should have any doubts: O’Miron’s tidal wave is coming,” Johnson said. “But the good news is that our scientists are confident that with the third dose — a booster dose — we can all get back to our level of protection.”
The UK has so far reported 3,137 cases of the Omron variant, although the true number is likely to be higher. Javid said “about 10 people” are in the hospital with the new version. Overall, the seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 cases in the country has crossed 50,000 in a day.
Javid said on Monday that Omicron was behind nearly 40% of infections in London. But Johnson said “tomorrow it will be most of the cases,” underlining how rapidly the new strain has spread in Britain in its first weeks.
The new guidelines asking people to work from home came into effect from Monday. The UK has also rolled back its mask mandate for shops and public transport, and now requires proof of vaccination or negative testing for attendees of large events.
The recent flurry of new restrictions is a sharp turn from the past few months, during which Johnson opposed Europe’s turn toward long-term mitigation measures such as the Vaccine Passport and Mask Mandate.
But the embattled prime minister has faced a significant backlash from his own Conservative backbenchers, who rely on the support of the opposition Labor Party to pass them into law, over his move to reimpose the Covid rules. .
CNN’s Robert Idioles contributed reporting.
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