Intensive care admissions are half the levels of previous peaks – with Boris Johnson insisting this means he is ‘confident’ the NHS will not be overwhelmed.
Omicron has brought the UK a steady stream of new patients to intensive care units despite record-breaking numbers and high admissions.
Only five percent of Covid-19 patients are currently on mechanical ventilations, as opposed to 11% at the height of the pandemic.
The Prime Minister said Omicron is ‘milder than previous variants’ and ‘keeps people in hospital for a shorter period’.
He told a Downing Street press conference yesterday: ‘While hospital admissions are rising quickly, this is not yet thankfully translating into the same numbers needing intensive care that we saw in previous waves.’
Data from Covid patients admitted to hospital during the Omicron wave suggests their illnesses are generally less severe than previous strains of the virus
Mr Johnson said the next few weeks would be ‘a difficult period for our NHS’, but added: ‘I’m also confident that we can get through it.
Although Omicron does cause lots of hospitalisations, it is pretty clearly resulting in fewer people in ICU, and certainly less mortality than we’ve seen from other variants.’
He added it was ‘absolutely crazy’ that people were ending up in intensive care with Covid because they were refusing the vaccine, with the latest figures showing 61 per cent of patients on ventilators are unvaccinated.
Professor Sir Chris Whitty, chief medical officer, stressed that booster jabs provided 88 per cent protection against hospitalisation and ‘even greater protection against mortality’.
Following 48 additional deaths recorded yesterday, Omicron did not cause an increase in deaths.
Whitty also warned that hospital admissions could increase and death rates may rise as the variant is spread to more elderly and vulnerable individuals.
He said: ‘In London it does look as if the numbers in younger adults are falling… But rates in older people are still going up and these are the people who are much more likely to be hospitalised.’
The number of Covid patients in England’s hospitals has doubled in the past fortnight and there are currently 15,055 patients receiving treatment. But only 797 are on ventilators – fewer than two months ago when cases were significantly lower.
At the peak last January, there were 34,336 patients in England’s hospitals, including 3,736 in intensive care. The proportion of Covid-infected patients in hospitals who are admitted to intensive care has dropped compared to April.
Chiefs of health say that hospitalisations have slowed in London, and they hope this will soon happen across the entire country.
The number of Covid patients in England’s hospitals has doubled in the past fortnight and there are currently 15,055 patients receiving treatment
Another 1,881 people were admitted with coronavirus in England yesterday, down from 2,370 on December 29.
Chris Hopson is the chief executive officer of NHS Providers. He stated that there has not been an increase in serious ill elderly people who require critical care or mechanical ventilation.
Mr Hopson added: ‘There are a number of chief executives who are saying, if we were going to see that surge, we probably would have seen the beginnings of it up to now, so there are glimmers of hope.’
The UK Health Security Agency has found that Omicron patients are 50 to 70% less likely than other variants to require hospital care.
And the proportion of patients admitted ‘with’ Covid rather than ‘because’ of it has increased.
Latest data shows a significant rise in so-called ‘incidental’ admissions, when for example someone breaks their leg and happens to test positive when arriving at hospital.
Just 67 per cent of Covid patients are being treated primarily for the virus – compared to 73 per cent a month ago.
Almost half of those admitted to hospitals in London last week were admitted ‘with’ not ‘for’ Covid, figures suggest.