“It’s a reminder of what this country can accomplish when we all work together,” Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom said at the Downing Street press conference on the government’s move to drop work from home, wearing of masks in schools and communal areas and its intention to end the legal requirement for people who test positive for Covid to self-isolate.
As per BBC, UK daily infections remain high but are falling; on Wednesday, the UK recorded 108,069 new cases.
Meanwhile, India on Wednesday reported 3.47 lakh new Covid-19 cases and 703 deaths. The country’s Omicron tally stands at 9,692.
Whether it’s a smart move to lift the curbs or not is difficult to tell. Restrictions- whether imposition or removal- are mostly decided based on facts and data on the number of cases, infection risk of variants and vaccination in the entire population.
A study published in the Lancet on January 19, says that on around January 17, 2022 there were 125 million Omicron infections a day in the world, which is more than ten times the peak of the delta wave in April, 2021. However, the study says, the proportion of cases that are asymptomatic or mild, which is around 80-90% for Omicron variant, has increased compared with previous variants, which is why the global infection-detection rate has declined globally from 20% to 5%.
On the case rate, Dr Susan Hopkins, the UK Health Security Agency’s chief medical adviser told BBC that the case rates would largely decline but may plateau at some point”. Vaccine uptake and mask wearing around strangers would determine how quickly that happens, she added.
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