Christmas shoppers in London.
John Bell, a regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford and the U.K. government's life sciences advisor, said that the previous Covid-19 waves are now history.
Bell analyzed data from the U.K., where cases are breaking records and hospital admissions are at their highest since March. He said that the number of people in the intensive care units who are vaccine free is very low.
The incidence of severe disease and death from this disease has not changed since we all got vaccine, that's important to remember.
I think we should be reassured that the horrible scenes that we saw a year ago will not happen again.
The new omicron variant appears to be less severe and many people spend a relatively short time in hospital, they don't need high-flow oxygen, this is not the same disease as we
A U.K. government study said that people are less likely to be admitted to the hospital with the Covid omicron variant.
The U.K. Health Security Agency said that people with omicron are less likely to go to the emergency departments and more likely to go to the hospital.
The analysis is preliminary and highly uncertain due to the small number of omicron cases currently in hospitals, but it does tally with similar findings from scientists in South Africa and research teams at Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh.
Health experts have warned that the sheer number of infections could lead to mounting deaths and an overwhelmed health-care system because the omicron variant is not as severe as other Covid strains.
Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, told CNBC via email last week that even if omicron does prove to bemilder than other strains, the potential caseload could double or triple.
He said that the U.K.'s National Health Service would be unsustainable at a time when they are stretched and tired after two years on the frontline.
Boris Johnson, the leader of the U.K., held off on imposing any new Covid-19 restrictions for England until the end of the year.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have already started new curbs to limit the spread of the omicron variant, but England has stuck with its current stay-at- home orders and increased mask-wearing.
Bell said Tuesday that Johnson's lack of action on Monday was probably fine, and noted that people's behavior in England had changed, with many being pretty responsible. In London, hospital admissions are still below 400 a day, which is a crucial threshold for the government.
The U.K. has reported over 12 million infections and over 150,488 deaths since the beginning of the Pandemic in early 2020.
Ryan Browne and Elliot Smith were involved in the article.
