One in 15 people in Britain have COVID-19
UK,INDIA,: Britain reported record COVID-19 prevalence for the last week of 2021 on Wednesday, with one in 15 people in England infected.
The increasing number of cases has put huge strains on public services such as hospitals, which face staff shortages and growing admissions.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resisted imposing stringent lockdown measures in England. Instead, he has bet that a vaccine booster drive and caution among the population will be enough to constrain the latest wave of infections, despite the arrival of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
More than 220,000 COVID-19 cases were recorded on one day in the last week, and the provision of services and testing capacity is increasingly under strain.
In England, the estimated COVID-19 prevalence was one in 15 for the week ending December 31 — over 6% of the population and up from an estimate of one in 25 for the previous week, the Office for National Statistics said.
ONS figures also showed record prevalence in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In all, an estimated nearly 3.75 million people were infected across the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, Health authorities across the UK simplified COVID-19 testing requirements on Wednesday, a move designed to cut isolation times for many people and that may ease the staffing shortages that are hitting public services from hospitals to garbage collection amid an omicron-fueled surge in infections.
In another effort to bolster the economy, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the House of Commons that pre-departure tests for people traveling to England will no longer be required because the omicron variant is so prevalent that travel restrictions meant to contain its spread are now meaningless. The tests had discouraged people from traveling overseas for fear they would get stuck abroad.
The moves came as the Cabinet backed Johnson’s decision not to impose any further restrictions despite record COVID-19 infection levels. Meanwhile, the number of fresh COVID-19 cases in the national capital nearly doubled to 10,665 on Wednesday from 5,481 on Tuesday with eight deaths taken into account during the last 24 hours.
The sample tests conducted numbered 89,742, according to the Delhi government’s latest health bulletin.
With the surge in the virus infections, the positivity rate also jumped to 11.88 per cent from 8.37 per cent yesterday, sending alarm signals across the city.
Meanwhile, with the US shattering a single-day record with over 1 million COVID-19 cases this week, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that the Omicron variant accounted for 95 per cent of new infections last week. According to new CDC estimates released late on Tuesday, the swing from Delta to Omicron happened in nearly a month. At the end of November, more than 99.5 per cent of coronavirus infections were Delta in the country.
On Monday, the US shattered a single-day record with over 1 million Covid-19 cases amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant and government decisions to ease prevention and control measures in the country. – THE HINDUSTAN TIMES, THE STATESMAN