LONDON, December 13. /TASS/. The Omicron strain will become the dominant coronavirus strain in London within the next 48 hours, UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid told the House of Commons Monday.
"While Omicron represents over 20% of cases in England, we’ve already seen it rise to over 44% in London and we expect it to become the dominant Covid 19 variant in the capital in the next 48 hours," the Secretary said
On Monday, UK authorities reported almost 55,000 new Covid cases. However, Javid underscored that, according to the UK Health Security Agency, in reality, about 200,000 British people contract the virus every day. The real number of Omicron strain infections is also much higher than the confirmed 4,700 cases.
According to Javid, there have been only 10 confirmed cases of hospitalization of people infected with the Omicron strain. Earlier on Monday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced one death, caused by the new strain. the UK authorities expect an abrupt spike in hospitalizations and fatalities in the upcoming days.
On Sunday, chief sanitary medics of the England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland declared that the coronavirus threat level has been elevated from level three to level four out of five, due to the active spread of the Omicron strain. The government activates the revaccination program, citing the UKHSA information that the third dose of the vaccine provides a 70% protection against symptoms, caused by the Omicron strain. Currently, over 23.5 million British people have been revaccinated (almost 36% of the population). In order to rapidly increase this figure, the authorities involve the military, and temporarily postpone most planned medical procedures in the hospitals.