Johnson: NHS will be under ‘considerable pressure’ from Covid for foreseeable future
Pressure on the UK’s hospitals from Covid cases will be “considerable” for “the next couple of weeks and maybe more”, Boris Johnson has said.
Johnson said the NHS will come under serious strain for the foreseeable future from the Omicron wave, but that harsher restrictions were still not necessary.
Covid cases are now at around 200,000 a day across the UK, with hospitalisations also now increasing at a fast rate.
However, the data shows that people in hospital are not needing ventilation or intensive care as much as previous waves due to the country’s vaccine protection and Omicron being less severe.
The majority of people in intensive care with Covid-19 are unvaccinated.
Johnson said “the way forward for the country as a whole is to continue with the path we’re on”, indicating he will likely not implement more restrictions during a government review on Wednesday.
Speaking to the media today, Johnson said: “I think we’ve got to recognise the pressure on our NHS, on our hospitals is going to be considerable in the course of the next couple of weeks and maybe more. There’s no question Omicron continues to surge through the country.
“There’s a couple of important points – it is plainly milder than previous variants, but we’re also in a different position. We’ve got the measures we’re using – making people wear masks on public transport and in confined spaces where you’re meeting people you wouldn’t normally meet … and working from home if you can.
“But we’re also continuing the massive booster rollout … and not just the booster rollout, but the vaccination programme for those that haven’t yet even had their first or second vaccination.”
Johnson will receive more data on Covid cases and hospitalisations this week from London, which is the epicentre of the UK’s Omicron surge.
The i newspaper reports that there are signs the Covid wave has peaked in London and that there is extensive evidence that less people are getting seriously ill from the Omicron variant.
Speaking to the BBC today, education secretary Nadhim Zahawi said: “At the moment, there is nothing in the data that would suggest to me, to us, that we need to go further.
“There’s some really good data from London that it looks like the infection rates are plateauing, if not yet coming down. But we are seeing leakage into the over-50s in terms of infections, and it’s generally the over-50s who end up with severe infection and hospitalisation.”