COVID outbreak in UK last week, but mostly with mild symptoms

Nearly 145.000 people in the UK were infected with the coronavirus every day of the week until December 20, according to the latest estimates from researchers at King's College London who developed the ZOE symptom recording application.

The researchers say there was an "explosion" of 144.284 cases a day, the highest rate since the application was launched. This is an increase of 66% compared to the previous week.

However, lead researcher Professor Tim Spector said: "Although the cases are a worrying picture, the good news is that based on preliminary data from about 2.500 cases reported in the ZOE app, Omicron is milder than Delta. ».

Similarly, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that there was a record number of operators in the UK in the week to 16 December since regular sampling of tens of thousands of citizens began. Specifically, the ONS estimates that there were 1,4 million coronavirus carriers.

The ONS also estimates that in the week beginning 29 November, 95% of the adult population in England had antibodies to the coronavirus, either due to vaccination or infection. The same percentage is recorded in Scotland, in Northern Ireland 95,3% of the adult population had antibodies and in Wales 93,6%.

Scientists in Britain continue to warn that the expected many cases of Omicron due to the very high transmissibility of the variant could lead to a number of hospitalizations that would threaten to cost the NHS health system.

However, they welcome as encouraging news studies from Imperial College and Scotland that show that Omicron causes milder symptoms with a lower risk of hospitalization than Delta.

As UCL epidemiologist Andrew Hayward commented, one could say that based on these studies, Omicron has now "degraded from a hurricane to a severe storm" in the warning system.

(KYPE / THG / AGK)