The two Omicron cases in Nottingham and Chelmsford were identified due to overnight sequencing, Dept of Health says.
It’s worth saying the U.K. capacity to sequence Covid genomes - which spot the variants - is world class AND Omicron has a feature which makes it easy to spot in this sequencing. So it’s a concern but our scientists and public health experts are *on it*
It’s also worth saying there are hundreds of people working in public health/virology/Govt through the night and over this weekend to search for and contain Omicron, so a massive thank you to all of them
One more point to add: around 8 months ago scientists were really worried about the Beta variant which showed evidence of vaccine-dodging. Outbreaks happened in the U.K., each one was contained and it was limited to a few hundred cases. Beta was out-run by Delta at the time too
UKHSA thinks Omicron might behave similar to Beta vs vaccines. The difference is, Omicron looks to be more infectious than Beta at least, possibly as much or more infectious than Delta. So absolutely no messing about
As I wrote in this long read today, the first sequenced case of Omicron was a quarantining traveller who passed it on to another when he opened the door of his secure hotel room in Hong Kong. That’s why experts are so concerned about its infectiousness: inews.co.uk/news/politics/…
I don’t know but I’d guess the “further measures” that Javid referred to the PM will announce later could be mandatory face masks but not full Plan B - we have only two cases, massive containment effort underway, and working from home costs the economy billions
I think we’re a long way from a fresh lockdown - I hope so anyway. When we went into lockdown in March 2020 we were flying blind against Covid. No genomic sequencing, no community testing let alone quick at-home LFTs, no vaccines. In January 2021 we had sequencing but
the vaccine rollout had only just started. We have so much more in our armoury now, I don’t think a lockdown is necessary or justified. Just fast, tailored action
Anyway as you can probably tell my Christmas tree decorating is not going very well!
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