Older people infected with Omicron are avoiding hospital in significant numbers, in the strongest sign yet that the UK has ridden out the worst of the variant’s wave.
The latest assessment from the Government’s scientific advisers shows that while cases of the highly infectious variant have now filtered through to the over-70s, the “expected associated increases in hospital admissions, however, are not observed”.
The larger proportion of elderly hospital patients testing positive for Covid-19 are suffering from the Delta variant, with those still on wards having been infected before Omicron’s surge.
Ministers, scientific advisers and health experts and now more confident that the UK can cope with Omicron than they have been since the highly infectious variant first emerged in November. This comes despite a third of all Covid-19 cases in the country occurring in the last eight weeks.
This has led to the conclusion inside Whitehall and among scientists that there will be no more lockdowns due to coronavirus, i understands.
The latest estimate for the epidemic in England is that it is shrinking for the first time in weeks. The UK Health Security Agency said the R reproduction number has fallen to between 0.8 and 1.1, a drop from 1.1-1.5 a week ago.
Case numbers are continuing to fall across the UK, with 95,787 new cases reported on Friday, a weekly average decrease of 27 per cent, and hospital admissions also declining week on week.
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Sage’s SPI-M modelling sub-committee said the dramatic improvement in the prognosis for older people with Omicron was due to high take-up of boosters in that age group and the greater use of community treatment for Covid-19.
This includes oxygen monitors at home – which can detect deteriorating lung function earlier and lead to shorter hospital stays – and the use of antiviral medications. It means Omicron is barely registering as a hospitalisation issue for vaccinated older people.
SPI-M noted there could also be reduced admissions due to more precautionary behaviour among the most vulnerable, and increased use of testing to manage their own risk.
The committee said: “Transmission is evidently currently happening within, and case numbers are increasing in, older age groups. The expected associated increases in hospital admissions, however, are not observed.”
The prediction in Whitehall that there will be no more lockdowns was echoed in Scotland, where Professor Jason Leitch, the national clinical director, said he could see a return to the tough restrictions put in place throughout the pandemic.
He told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “I don’t think we’ll go back to full lockdowns.
“I can’t tell you for sure – nobody knows for sure – but my reading of the science, the history of pandemics, the global research that’s going on would suggest that the very original days – now some two years ago unbelievably – where we were locked in our houses… I don’t think we’re heading back there.
“But I think we might have tricky moments on the road out, but I’m hopeful today because Omicron is diminishing.”
The UKHSA has designated a sub-lineage of Omicron, BA2, a variant under investigation. There have been 473 cases of the strain in the UK since last month, and while the numbers are small compared to the original Omicron variant, it is growing.
The variant cannot be detected as easily in genomic sampling as Omicron because what is known as the S-gene deletion, which allows scientists to distinguish between Delta and Omicron in the lab, does not occur.
However, UKHSA experts do not believe it is a cause for concern.
