‘Omicron emergency’ in UK as it confirms one death from new variant

At least one person in the UK has died with the Omicron variant, Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed on Monday, according to the BBC.

“Sadly, yes, Omicron is producing hospitalisations and sadly, at least one patient has been confirmed to have died with Omicron,” Johnson was quoted as saying. “So I think the idea that this is somehow a milder version of the virus, I think, that is something we need to set on one side and just recognise the sheer pace at which it accelerates through the population.”

Facing a surge in Omicron cases, the UK has declared an “emergency” and decided to start booster doses for everyone aged 18-plus from this week, according to media reports.

“No one should be in any doubt, there is a tidal wave of Omicron coming,” Johnson reportedly said on television on Sunday. “I’m afraid we’re now facing an emergency in our battle with the new variant.”

“It is now clear that two doses of vaccine are simply not enough to give the level of protection we all need. But the good news is that our scientists are confident that with a third dose, a booster dose, we can all bring our level of protection back up,” he explained.

The UK has already raised its COVID alert level to four — the second highest – and is seeing hospitalisations from the Omicron variant.

On Omicron, Johnson said: “We already know it is so much more transmissible that a wave of Omicron through a population that was not boosted would risk a level of hospitalisation that could overwhelm our NHS (public healthcare system) and lead sadly to very many deaths.”

Also read: Why Indian scientists think boosters are essential to combat Omicron

According to researchers in Israel, a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine resulted in a significant increase in protection against the Omicron variant. “People who received the second dose five or six months ago do not have any neutralisation ability against Omicron. However, they do have some (neutralisation ability) against the Delta (variant),” Gili Regev-Yochay, director of Infectious Diseases Unit at Sheba, was quoted as saying by Reuters. “The good news is that with the booster dose, it increases about 100-fold,” she added.

On Sunday, meanwhile, five more Omicron infections were confirmed in India, taking the total number of cases to 38. While Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Chandigarh reported their first cases, two were recorded in Karnataka and Maharashtra.