It was only a matter of time: Omikron, the new variant of the coronavirus, has supplanted the mutant Delta in the UK. 10,059 new Omicron cases were reported yesterday alone.
London – The highly contagious omicron mutant has become the dominant variant of the coronavirus in England. Omikron now makes up 60 percent of all cases in the country, said British Health Minister Sajid Javid in an interview with Sky News.
The variant had spread rapidly in recent weeks: On Saturday alone, 10,059 new Omicron cases were reported in the United Kingdom – three times as many as the day before. Omikron is also already dominant in Scotland.
In order to slow down the spread of Omikron in Germany, the federal government has declared Great Britain a virus variant area and thus drastically restricted entry from the country from Monday.
At the same time, the debate about stricter corona measures is coming to a head in Great Britain, where far-reaching freedoms still apply. According to media reports, discussions are ongoing about a kind of breakwater lockdown after the Christmas days. Scientific advisors are calling for the measures to be tightened as quickly as possible in order to prevent the health system from being overloaded. One is “almost certain that there are currently hundreds of thousands of new Omicron infections per day” in England – so a high number of unreported cases. According to the Guardian, some modelers warned that without more stringent measures there could be up to two million new infections a day by the turn of the year.
Boris Johnson’s government still hopes to be able to rely largely on the protection of the vaccinations. Health Minister Javid tightened the tone against the approximately five million unvaccinated – about ten percent of the population. “You really need to think about the damage you are doing to society by occupying hospital beds that could otherwise be used for someone else, maybe someone with a heart problem or an operation,” the minister told Sky News. dpa
