Thread by @chrischirp

THREAD: on omicron, UK cases, London & what to do next...

Last post-briefing tweet thread of the year! 1/18

First Omicron... as of 11 December, Omicron was most common in Scotland and England but starting its growth in Wales & N Ireland. With its growth speed, shares of cases will now be much higher in all regions. 2/18

In England, UKHSA "S gene dropout" data shows it was 40% of cases by 13 DEcember. It will be dominant in England by now.

WHO first designated it a variant of concern & named it Omicron 3 weeks ago today. Crazy. 3/18

In England, it's growing fast in all regions (less than 2 day doubling time in many!) but is highest in London which is maybe 5 days ahead of other regions. 4/18

Imperial college released a report today showing high immune escape, rapid growth and no evidence that omicron was milder than delta.

imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial… 5/18

Nationally, cases have reached record highs. Another record reported today.

Growth might slow over next few days because:
- school holidays
- delta might decline cos of boosters
- weekend
- testing backlogs 6/18

In fact on testing, we can see that we are doing tons of LFDs and the most PCR tests ever. Testing times are getting longer.

We might reach testing capacity next week, artifically flattening reported cases. 7/18

Back to cases... unsurprisingly (given where Omicron is most prevalent), Scotland and England are rising rapidly while Wales and NI still flat... Expect that to change over the next week.

Note that cases in under 11's sky high. Schools will be big issue next term. Again. 8/18

People in hospital are falling or flat everywhere except England where admissions are also going up. These are still mostly Delta!! Omicron admissions will start to be felt from next week on I think. And will (at least at first) be on top of these Delta ones :-(

9/18

Meanwhile we are seeing more Covid outbreaks in hospitals. We need to watch this because Omicron seems ridiculously catchable. Hospital workers need to be provided with upgraded masks asap.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-…
10/18

Deaths are flat - do not expect recent case rises to be reflected in deaths for several weeks yet.

We are accelerating booster jabs - almost 800K in one day recently. We need to keep at that level and go even higher to reach people as soon as possible. 11/18

Soooo, let's talk about London where Omicron is now the large majority of cases.

It's the fastest growing region by far in terms of cases, positivity rates and hospital admissions. Many boroughs are showing insane recent growth. 12/18

Hosp admissions by primary diagnosis show increase in *both* admissions for Covid and more incidental admissions (e.g. trauma or caught covid while in hospital for something else).

This is consistent with no evidence that Omicron milder.

Critical care already v busy. 13/18

Cases are going up fastest in 20-29 year olds but all age groups in London are going up - even school age kids where cases *had* been dropping towards the end of term. 14/18

London is the least vaccinated, least boosted region of England with large difference by deprivation, espeically in the over 50s. This means vulnerable populations will be massively exposed to, and at risk from, Omicron. What are we doing to address this? 15/18

So overall things are not looking great.

Indie SAGE suggests having a mini circuit break until Christmas eve to stop as many people as possible getting infected next week - this will save lives, protect NHS and allow limited mixing over Xmas.
16/18

And this *must* come with govt support for affected businesses - they are already suffering greatly from voluntary cancellations (and I think need support regardless).

17/18

And finally, we *must* vaccinate the world. @UNHumanright reported over 100 companies able to produce vax that are not allowed to.

It's not a zero sum game. UK must support vax waivers and tech transfer to enable much higher vax production globally. 18/18