Only 85 people have been admitted to hospital with Omicron so far – about one thousandth of the total number identified with the variant.
Yesterday, the numbers of cases that have been genetically confirmed jumped from around 10,000 to under 25,000.
The UK Health Security Agency, UKHSA also tracks the likely cases. The number of cases rose by approximately 23,000 to less than 77,000
That means Government labs will likely identify at least six cases per year.
The agency claims that Omicron has seen a decline in the number of Omicron-treated patients admitted to hospitals in England, ranging from 65 to 85 yesterday.
Experts emphasize that hospitals tend to delay cases by at least a week, because serious illnesses take time to manifest after an infection.
The government advisers are concerned that this big increase in cases could lead to increased admissions and death rates in the weeks ahead.
New data from South Africa suggests the optimism of the early picture.
This shows that Pretoria’s death rate for Omicron patients has fallen to less than half of the number of people who were hospitalized in Pretoria in previous waves.
South African medical leaders have also said that Omicron is mainly causing mild disease – although this might be in part because most of the country’s young population has either been vaccinated or infected with Covid before.
Even though the UK has seen record numbers of Covid-19-related infections, thousands of Christmas shoppers have flooded London’s West End.
On the last Saturday of December 25, huge crowds throng York’s Christmas market on Parliament Street.
Overall, while the Omicron variant has resulted in cases spiking this week – exceeding 90,000 a day for the last two days – daily hospitalisations and deaths remain relatively flat.
Yesterday, in the UK, there were 900 Covid-insured patients. That’s not too many compared to the 865 average daily admissions over the last seven days.
There were 125 Covid deaths. This is just below the 112 daily mean for the previous week. There were seven Omicron-related fatalities.
While there were large ‘excess death’ peaks caused by Covid during the first wave in spring 2020, and last winter, that has not been the case so far this winter.