COVID hospital admissions are the highest since February as the Omicron variant tears through the UK.
But NHS trusts have said the service is NOT overwhelmed, after the Government confirmed no new restrictions would be locked in before New Year’s Eve.
But health bosses have said that even though there have been no reports of large numbers of patients requiring ventilators like during the last winter peak, it was “still far too early” to dismiss concerns about the variant.
It comes as a string of hugely positive studies show Omicron IS milder than other strains, with the first official UK report revealing the risk of hospitalisation is 50 to 70 per cent lower than with Delta.
Covid booster jabs protect against Omicron and offer the best chance to get through the pandemic, health officials have repeatedly said.
Trending In The News’s Jabs Army campaign is helping get the vital extra vaccines in Brits’ arms to ward off the need for any new restrictions.
There are fears the NHS could easily become overwhelmed as staff absences could see “even relatively small numbers of extra Covid cases” causing issues for patient prioritisation and staff redeployment, said to NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson.
Medical leaders have expressed fears “something is going to have to give,” as one modeller said as many as 40 per cent of London’s NHS workforce could be absent, with Covid-19 a major factor, in a worst-case scenario.
But despite the doom-mongering, Covid admissions to hospital are rising but “not precipitately so”, experts said.
In a statement, Mr Hopson said: “Trust leaders are watching their current hospital admissions data very closely.
“Talking to chief executives this morning, the sense is that admissions are rising but not precipitately so.
“What’s particularly interesting is how many chief executives are talking about the number of asymptomatic patients being admitted to hospital for other reasons and then testing positive for Covid.
“Trusts are not, at the moment, reporting large numbers of patients with Covid type respiratory problems needing critical care or massively increased use of oxygen, both of which we saw in last January’s Delta variant peak.
“We should therefore be cautious about over interpreting current Covid admission data.
“As the Covid community infection rate rises rapidly due to Omicron, we will get significantly more cases of incidental Covid in hospital.”
Admissions to wards hit their highest on Christmas Day, with 1,281 patients hospitalised – up 74 per cent in a week.
But the same dataset shows that figures for London, the UK’s Omicron ground zero where one in 20 adults are infected with Covid, are below crunch levels that could spark dreaded restrictions.
And addressing the nation tonight, Health Secretary Sajid Javid confirmed New Year’s Eve WOULD go ahead.
Mr Javid urged Brits to take precautions when partying, like meeting outdoors and doing a lateral flow test before attending events.
He said: “We look at the data on a daily basis, that hasn’t changed over the Christmas period, but there will be no further measures before the new year.
“We won’t be taking any further measures, of course people should remain cautious as we approach new year celebrations and take a lateral flow test if that makes sense, celebrate outdoors if you can, have some ventilation indoors if you can.
“Please remain cautious and when we get into the new year of course we will see then if we do need to take any further measures but nothing more until then, at least.”
It comes as more than 320,000 new coronavirus infections were recorded over the Christmas period.
Over the the last three days, a total of 321,036 people have tested positive for the virus.
On December 25, a further 113,628 cases were recorded and on December 26 this was 108,893.
Today, December 27, 98,515 cases were reported. But this figure could be a little bit lower due to the fact that all nations are not included in the total for the last few days and do not include Scotland or Wales.
And a further 147 people were recorded to have died in the 28 days after taking a PCR test.
There were no deaths recorded on 25 and 26 December, but it is thought that any that did occur will be added to the grim total in the coming days or weeks.
And Mr Javid said 90 per cent of Covid cases were the Omicron variant in his address this evening.
He said: “We think some 90% of cases now across England are this now Omicron variant. It shows you just how quickly it has spread.”
