Thread by @kakape

“The doubling rate of Omicron in some regions is now down to less than two days and I'm afraid we're also seeing the inevitable increase in hospitalizations, up by 10% nationally week on week and up by almost a third in London”, Boris Johnson just said in his briefing.

UK now boostering anyone over 18 whose second jab is more than 3 months ago.
"From tomorrow, we're speeding things up even further by removing the 15 minute post-vaccination waiting time. And while we're at it from Monday, 12 to 15 year olds can book in for a second jab."

Johnson really leaning into boostering:
“We're jabbing in hospitals, we're jabbing in surgeries, we're jabbing in pharmacies and in pop-up centers, we're jabbing in shopping centers and on high streets, in football stadiums... Wherever you are, we'll be there with a jab for you."

“I'm afraid we have to be realistic that records will be broken a lot over the next few weeks”, says Chris Whitty, CMO.
“What we've got is two epidemics on top of one another: an existing Delta epidemic roughly flat and a very rapidly growing omicron epidemic on top"

“Both the numbers but also the percentage of cases is steadily rising”, says Whitty.
"So an increasing percentage of all of our cases is now Omicron. But that's not because delta is going away. It's because Omicron is being built on top of that."

I’ll leave it at this.
It certainly feels like the WHO message of “It’s not vaccines alone. It’s vaccines AND” is falling on deaf ears in Downing Street. Will be interesting to see how a country fares that leans so heavily on boostering...