The Omicron variant of COVID-19 may shorten the window between infection and infectiousness compared to other strains, new analysis by British scientists suggests.
The “reduced incubation period” of Omicron, identified by the UK Health and Security Agency, informed the government’s decision on Saturday to introduce pre-departure coronavirus tests for all international arrivals to the UK, according to the Department for Health.
It follows Health Secretary Sajid Javid confirming that 26 additional confirmed cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 had been reported across the UK, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 160.
“New analysis conducted by the UK Health and Security Agency indicates that the window between infection and infectiousness may be shorter for the Omicron variant, which increases the efficacy of pre-departure testing as it is more likely to identify positive cases before travel,” said the department.
“Given the reduced incubation period of the Omicron variant, passengers are advised to take the pre-departure test as close as possible to their scheduled departure to the UK and no earlier than 48 hours before travelling,” it added.
I was watching Andrew Marr Show this morning. Marr interviewed a Prof in S. Africa about Omicron and he said that no-one had died yet, next to no-one had been hospitalised, most cases were unvaccinated young adults, worst symptoms were no more than a bad cold. Later in the show, Marr interviewed Dominic Raab - a different, more gloomy story altogether.
AFAIK, no-one knows much about Omicron - obviously, even less is known about the possible mutations.
Earlier this year:
Another reason was that they identified 48 clusters of B.1.617.2, some of which revealed a degree of community transmission.With cases from the Delta variant having risen quickly, British scientists considered the Delta variant having overtaken the Alpha variant as the dominant variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK in early June 2021.
Researchers at Public Health England later found that over 90% of new cases in the UK in the early part of June 2021 were the Delta variant; they also cited evidence that the Delta variant was associated with an approximately 60% increased risk of household transmission compared to the Alpha variant.
A study published on 27 August 2021 showed that people infected with the Delta variant of Covid-19 were almost twice as likely to need treatment in hospital than those infected with the Alpha variant. The large national study tracked more than 43,000 patients, who were confirmed by lab tests to have Covid, over two months between 29 March and 23 May 2021.
This was the first study to report on the hospitalisation risks of these two Covid variants (which were confirmed by genome sequencing.) When adjusted for factors such as age, sex, ethnicity and deprivation, the researchers found that those with Delta had nearly twice the risk of needing to go to hospital within 14 days of the positive test. The risk of going to hospital with the Delta variant was similar for patients in the study who were vaccinated and those who weren’t.
The Omicron variant in the UK may be more infectious and may be more harmful than the Delta variant or it may not but we’ll have to wait and see - some of us taking precautionary measures and some not …
Oh, come on Omah, the Government moved as fast as it could this time as far as I can see. In any case, it takes more than a few days for the scientists to “discover” any new variant by which time many people have already flown out/in.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid told MPs the variant was continuing to spread “here and around the world” and there were now cases here “with no links to international travel”.
There have been 336 confirmed cases of the highly-mutated variant across the UK, he said, a rise of 90 from Sunday.
Of the confirmed Omicron cases, 261 were in England, 71 in Scotland and four in Wales - while Northern Ireland is yet to have a confirmed case. Mr Javid said that as far as he was aware none of those people had been admitted to hospital.
The UK has put restrictions on travel from countries in Africa, with Nigeria becoming the 11th country added to the red list. At the weekend, the government said the majority of Omicron cases identified in England thus far had links to overseas travel from South Africa and Nigeria.
Mr Javid said at least 21 Omicron cases in England were linked to travel from Nigeria.
Mr Javid said he could not guarantee the variant would not “knock us off our road to recovery”, and the window between infection and infectiousness may be shorter for Omicron.
He said the government did not have a “complete picture” of whether the variant caused more severe disease or not, or how it interacted with current vaccines.
I think it’s a storm in a very large tea cup. There’s no evidence that deaths & hospitalisations are increasing. Most here are vaccinated now. Seems some want this to go on forever.
… and, of course, 1,500,000 people in the UK are currently self-isolating every month - many of those will, presumably, be absentees from the work-force.
I’m not a covid sceptic as everyone here knows but I don’t think many can see the logic of this constant nonsense when most of the population is vaccinated or has already had covid. It’s like the hokey cokey. Deaths and hospitalisations are down yet we are going to town on restricting real life again. There comes a point when it has to stop and if I am getting fed up then plenty of others will be far more fed up.
Around 1600 people die every day and yet only 40 die “with COVID”. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity are much bigger issues than COVID. Unfortunately, the media, the Pharma industry, testing companies and their stakeholders are making huge sums of money out of COVID, so its no wonder that the manufactured hysteria is being prolonged for as long as possible.
You don’t have to be a clairvoyant to understand what goes on in the Covid fiasco. The figures are deliberately adjusted to create a response and to justify the governments actions.
Boris has just ordered umpteen millions of new vaccines, it was sods law that a new strain of covid was coming along. Boris also uses a natural phenomena - thousands of people getting sick in the winter and filling up hospital beds putting pressure on the NHS.
Unfortunately what they aren’t telling you is the fact that most of the beds this year are occupied by vaxxed people that have suffered blood clots and heart issues.
When they tell you that most of the covid admissions are unvaxxed that’s probably true, but the majority of patients are vaxxed, but their illness is not covid related.
