From:
slider@anashram.com
Covid cases have plunged in London boroughs by up to 54 per cent in a
week, official figures have revealed as calls grew for the working from
home guidance to be ditched as quickly as possible.
Confirmed infections were down in all boroughs by at least a quarter in
the seven days to January 12, compared to the previous week.
Hospital admissions of coronavirus patients also dropped, raising hopes
that defeating the Omicron surge is now firmly underway.
London’s public health chief Professor Kevin Fenton told the Standard: “It is very encouraging to see that London’s Covid-19 cases are now on a firm downwards trajectory.”
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-covid-cases-by-borough-omicron-wave-b977248.html
The infection numbers may be affected by changes to the testing regime,
with people without symptoms who test positive on lateral flow tests no
longer having to take a confirmatory PCR.
However, Prof Fenton added that decreasing hospitalisations, an R rate of
the disease’s growth below one, and prevalence data are “a solid
indication that the virus is in retreat”.
But he also stressed: “Although we are heading in the right direction, our numbers are still very high overall, and it is important that we stick
with the effective public health measures including wearing face coverings
and working from home, to ensure we see the back of it.”
As cases drop, calls are growing for the Government to ditch or scale back
Plan B, including working from home, by a January 26 review point or
earlier.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: “There’s no question that our city needs workers back in the office to help support our economic recovery and make
our city buzz and thrive once again.
“Thousands of jobs and businesses depend on people being back at their
desks because the reduced footfall at the moment, both day and night, is
having a devastating knock-on effect on our retail, hospitality and
cultural sectors, which have already been hit so hard during the pandemic.
“The Government must follow the science and end the work from home
guidance as soon as it’s safe to do so.”
Cabinet ministers have signalled that the WFH advice will go on January
26, however, some MPs have been pressing for it to be jettisoned more
quickly.
The official figures also showed the number of patients with Covid
admitted to London’s hospitals dropped to 253 on Saturday, the lowest
since December 19.
The Covid jabs roll-out has been key to limiting the number of severe
cases of the disease.
### - they've defo been deliberately fucking with the figures via
non-testing anyway etc, but even so it still appears that the caseloads
here are dropping drastically in london!?
plus, with omicron apparently still having very serious health-effects
upon the non-vaccinated otherwise, one can only conclude that the
vaccinations themselves are actually doing their job very well protecting people from experiencing more serious complications from covid generally...
the very real hope now being that omicron itself will thus effectively vaccinate the whole planet in record time, not only to itself but also
against other future variants as well thus spelling the end of the
pandemic...
can't say for sure yet, but things are currently actually looking fairly hopeful covid-wise, especially considering just how badly it 'could' have
gone :)
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* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)