The top 10 hotspots with Omicron cases revealed – is your area on the list?
THE Omicron hotspots have been revealed for the first time, as cases accelerate rapidly across the UK.
New measures under Plan B have been brought in to battle the super strain, which is doubling in numbers every two to three days.
On Thursday, the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) published its first report into the severity of the variant.
It revealed several hotspots located in both rural and urban areas.
London has emerged as an epicentre for the Omicron variant, which may come as no surprise given its international travel connections.
UKHSA said the variant is rising fastest in the capital, East Midlands and South East.
But its detection is widespread and experts say it is likely to dominate all other strains of Covid within a month, including Delta.
UKHSA Chief Medical Advisor, Dr Susan Hopkins said "vaccination is critical to help us bolster our defences against becoming severely ill from this new variant".
Adults are urged to accept their booster vaccine invite as soon as it arrives from the NHS, while there are still millions yet to take up their initial course of jabs.
Hotspots
The UKHSA report finds the following have the highest Omicron cases between November 22 and December 5:
- West Northamptonshire, East Midlands: 27
- Croydon, London: 8
- Hackney, London: 8
- Lambeth, London: 8
- Newham, London: 8
- Brent, London: 7
- Buckinghamshire, South East: 7
- Greenwich, London: 7
- Lewisham, London: 7
- Wandsworth, London: 6
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The UKHSA said that it is likely that Omicron will become the dominant strain in Britain, taking over the Delta variant.
It expects at least half of Covid cases to be caused by the Omicron variant in the next two to four weeks.
Previously experts have warned that with Omicron and Delta competing, cases could ramp up to 90,000 per day by Christmas.
The risk assessment paper also suggests Omicron shows a “reduction in protection” given by previous infection or vaccination.
But more data needs to be collected, including on how much more severe Omicron may be.
Overall there have been 568 cases of Omicron confirmed - but there are likely hundreds of thousands more.
These are the cases of Omicron that have been confirmed through rigorous genetic testing.
Only 20 per cent of all positive Covid swabs are sent to laboratories and screened this way, meaning there are many more Omicron cases that are not genetically confirmed.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: “The UK health security agency estimates that the number of infections are approximately 20 times higher than the number of confirmed cases, and so the current number of infections is probably closer to 10,000.”
Public health chiefs are able to track Omicron cases another way.
Omicron shows an indicator in the test results called SGTF or “S-gene dropout” that is not seen in Delta.
UKHSA says this marker has increased rapidly in recent weeks.
Until the week beginning 23 November 2021, the weekly count of cases with SGTF was routinely less than 150.
These cases were likely the Alpha variant, which also has SGTF but is not in great numbers in the UK currently.
In the most recent week of data, up to 6 December, SGTF cases increased to 705.
Some of these will be Alpha but most will be Omicron.
The majority of these cases are located in London and the South East, UKHSA said.
Dr Hopkins said: “It is increasingly evident that Omicron is highly infectious and there is emerging laboratory and early clinical evidence to suggest that both vaccine-acquired and naturally acquired immunity against infection is reduced for this variant.
“It is therefore absolutely critical that we all do everything that we can to help break the chains of transmission and slow the spread of this new variant.
“Vaccination is critical to help us bolster our defences against becoming severely ill from this new variant – please get your first, second, third or booster jab without delay.
“Please also make sure to follow all Government guidance to reduce the spread of infection.
“It remains vital that anyone with Covid-19 symptoms isolates and gets a PCR test immediately.”
The Sun's Jab's Army has called upon all Brits to come forward and have their life-saving shot, with volunteers also needed to drive the rollout.
Meanwhile, the Government’s scientific panel Sage also said Omicron is likely to account for the majority of new Covid infections in the UK “within a few weeks”.
And it is very likely to lead to a rise in hospital admissions, Sage said.
In minutes from a meeting on Tuesday, the top scientists warned admissions could reach 1,000 per day or more in England by the end of the year.
“The overall scale of any wave of hospitalisations without interventions is highly uncertain, but the peak could reach several times this level,” the document said.
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Although vaccines are the best protection against Covid - and boosters dramatically increase this protection - they are not bulletproof.
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Sage said if Omicron reduces vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation from, say, 96 per cent to 92 per cent, “that would effectively double the number of vaccinated individuals who are not protected from hospitalisation”.
Even if individuals themselves have a very high level of protection against hospitalisation (92 per cent), the additional numbers of hospitalisations would put pressure on the NHS.