Articles in IAG Covid-19

In a shameful attempt to save his own job, the Prime Minister has announced the rapid ending of ALL precautions against the spread of Omicron in England, including soon even the requirement to self-isolate if infected. The move will prolong the Omicron wave, damage the economy, and lead to more avoidable deaths and hospitalisations, as well as restrict the ability of all clinically-vulnerable people to participate in society. Read on for more.

This is an interesting study about the spread of Covid-19 in the air, but it needs to be treated with great caution. This is because the tests were conducted using the Alpha, Beta and Delta variants of Covid-19, NOT the current Omicron variant. As over 95% of all infections today are Omicron, this means the study is of limited value. Also, the study has not yet been peer-reviewed by other scientists, and therefore may be challenged or changed at a later date.

You can read the full study here, and read a media summary of it here.

The Prime Minister yesterday (4 January) held another Covid-19 press conference. While acknowledging the seriousness of the Omicron emergency and announcing plans to put the NHS and essential services on a ‘war footing’, the PM also said that the Government would NOT be introducing any further precautions to slow the spread of Omicron and instead would ‘ride the wave’. Read on for more…

We are delighted to have some cautiously good Covid-19 news for you! A study has found that, so far, people catching Omicron in the UK have gone into hospital less often than people catching the Delta variant. This suggests that Omicron so far is making a smaller percentage of people seriously ill, compared to Delta.

Reported Covid-19 case numbers are going to be very unreliable over the next three weeks, with big daily changes both up and down. The reasons for this are to do with how the system works, not because the number of infected people is actually going up and down as shown by the published results.