Nadhim Zahawi revealed there are now patients with Omicron being treated in UK hospitals, and he said the new coronavirus variant means a massive bump in the road for the nation’s recovery from the pandemic.
The Education Secretary painted a gloomy picture of the spread of the mutant strain as he said it now accounts for one-third of all cases in London.
He also confirmed that cases of the variant are doubling every two to three days with more than 1,600 formally confirmed so far.
However, Mr Zahawi warned that the true number of cases of Omicron will be up to ten times that as he said the vaccine booster programme is now in a race against time against the variant.
Dr Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser for the UK Health Security Agency, said that while there are now cases in UK hospitals there is yet to be a confirmed Omicron related death.
It came after it emerged that Michael Gove was leading the push for tougher Plan C COVID 19 restrictions, including pub passports after pandemic modelling revealed the Omicron variant could cause more hospitalisation than last winter.
However, Boris Johnson and Downing Street are said to be resisting Michael Gove’s calls for a new crackdown, as the Prime Minister faces a rebellion from his own Conservative party in a vote over the introduction of Plan B rules.
Senior Cabinet ministers are said to be preparing to revolt against the Plan B measures in a vote next week, and 65 Tory MPs have already demonstrated they will vote against.
A Commons vote is set to be held on Tuesday over the Plan B measures, which require face masks to be worn in non-hospitality venues and ask people to work from home where possible. NHS COVID passes will also be required in some venues, like nightclubs, from Wednesday.
Michael Gove, who has been one of the most consistently pro-restriction Cabinet ministers since the beginning of the pandemic, said the very challenging new information meant that action was clearly needed and that as new data came in they would consider what steps to take in the face of that data.
The minister’s call to potentially cancel Christmas for a second year running comes as scientists advising the Government have said tougher COVID restrictions may be required to stop Omicron causing anywhere between 25,000 to 75,000 deaths in England over the next five months.
If someone said it was raining outside, does that mean that we’re all going to look outside to check? So far that we know of, Omicron has killed no one, although there are people in hospital from it being treated for it, but so far no one has died from it, which means that you can’t trust the way that the data is being manipulated, as they do so often, and this just demonstrates that our Government have and will continue to do so.
It’s all to do with fearmongering and although Omicron is COVID it doesn’t appear to be as bad as the former variants, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t still be vigilant. Wear a mask if you want to, or don’t but logic dictates that we should still be cautious just in case, and the fact that Nadhim Zahawi is the Education Minister and not the Health Secretary, why should anyone believe what he says?
And what tests are they using outside of the hospitals to isolate and identify Omicron?
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 