Britain’s Omicron cases could top 60,000 a day by Christmas, scientist says
- Epidemiologist John Edmunds said the new variant may be spreading faster in the country than in South Africa
- He called Omicron a ‘very severe setback’ and urged people to get booster shots as fast as possible
It’s likely there are more Omicron cases than confirmed by tests, The Guardian reported, citing Edmunds, who works at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, speaking at a webinar organised by the Royal Society of Medicine on Thursday.
The emergence of the Omicron variant and its large number of mutations has raised questions on its potential to evade vaccines, transmission rate and whether it leads to severe illness.
Early results of lab experiments indicate that protection by existing vaccines won’t be totally wiped out and some physicians in South Africa have described cases as mostly mild, though early cases need to be interpreted with caution.
While a World Health Organization expert panel said it needs more data to give any recommendations regarding the Omicron variant, the UK’s Health Security Agency has said it expects at least half of all Covid-19 cases to be caused by Omicron in the next two to four weeks if the growth rate and doubling time of cases observed in the last two weeks are maintained.