HEALTH chiefs do not believe that draconian Covid restrictions are needed as fewer elderly Brits are becoming seriously ill with Omicron.
NHS leaders have been reassured that despite the surge in hospital admissions across the UK, that the threshold for new rules has not been crossed.
Yesterday, the number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals in England jumped to 11,492 – the highest number since February.
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.
Chris Hopson, the head of NHS Providers, told The Times: “Trust chief executives are saying we should be careful interpreting the daily Covid hospital data.
“Although the numbers are going up and going up increasingly rapidly, the absence of large numbers of seriously ill older people is providing significant reassurance.
“Trust CEOs know that the government has a high threshold to cross before it will introduce extra restrictions and can see why, in the absence of that surge of severely ill older people, that threshold hasn’t been crossed yet.”
Boris Johnson is due to decide next week on whether Covid-19 rules should be introduced that ban indoor drinking in pubs.
The PM is unlikely to recall Parliament to rubberstamp legally-binding lockdown restrictions such as the loathed Rule of Six, sources claimed on Monday.
But that does not rule out country-wide “guidance” which cannot be enforced by cops and does not need Commons approval.
On Thursday cases in the UK reached a new record-high for the second day in a row after 189,213 cases were reported.
However, the record-breaking figures include a backlog of cases from before December 25.
A further 332 people died in Britain from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours bringing the total to 148,421.
OMICRON TAKEOVER
Today new data revealed that coronavirus infections are slowing, amid a spread in Omicron cases in older age groups.
But experts have warned that there has been a worrying rise in cases in Brits aged 55-75, which could put pressure on the NHS.
Omicron is now responsible for 90 per cent of cases in the UK and has taken over from the Delta variant.
Data from the ZOE Symptom Tracker app showed that infections are slowing in the 0-55 age groups.
Dr Claire Steves, scientist on the ZOE Covid Study app and reader at King’s College London said: “The number of daily new symptomatic Covid cases are more than double what they were this time last year and we are just a day or two away from hitting over 200,000.
“However, the exponential growth in cases appears to have stopped, and the rise is more steady.
“Hospitalisation rates are thankfully much lower than this time last year, but they are still high, especially in London.
“The ZOE data is showing that cases are still on the rise in 55-75-year-olds so unfortunately, it’s likely that this will translate into more hospital admissions in the New Year.”
