Covid 19 Hospitalization Rises In UK After Ease Of Rules

• Covid-19 infections in the U.K. have edged back up following the easing of restrictions and rapid spread of a more-transmissible subvariant of omicron.
• In the U.K. more than 574,000 people have tested positive and about 15,530 hospitalized in the last week.
• Still, this wave may be close to peaking, according to Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance.

A recent news article published in the Bloomberg Quint states that U.K. Hospitalizations Rise After Covid Cases Edge Back Up.

Omicron is mild

While omicron has proven to be more mild in general compared to previous strains, it would be wrong to assume that the coronavirus will continue evolving into a less severe infection, Vallance told the Science and Technology parliamentary committee on Wednesday.

“This virus will not go away and will continue evolving,” he said. “It is changing quite rapidly.” 

Despite an uptick in infections driven by the BA.2 subvariant of omicron, most countries like New Zealand have gone ahead with plans to relax pandemic curbs buoyed by lower hospitalization rates and desire to revive tourism.

Vallance, however, pointed out three necessary factors for a living-with-Covid plan: good surveillance, government readiness to ramp up restrictions when required and protecting vulnerable people.

As part of shifting to the endemic phase of the pandemic, several countries including the U.K. plan to scale down testing, a move that World Health Organization warned will limit the ability to “track where the virus is, how it is spreading and how it is evolving.”

Testing new variant

Cutting down on testing and surveillance will make it difficult to detect new variants, introduce curbs when needed, putting a strain on healthcare systems particularly in countries that have lifted curbs or where vaccination remains low, the WHO said in an update on Tuesday.