Covid updates as UK cases hit record high on New Year’s Eve

A complete of 12,395 folks have been in hospital in England with Covid-19 as of 8am on 31 December, in line with figures from NHS England.

That is up 68 per cent from every week earlier and is the best quantity since 25 February.

Throughout the second wave of coronavirus, the quantity peaked at 34,336 on 18 January.

In London, 3,636 folks have been in hospital with Covid-19 on 31 December, up 61 per cent week-on-week and the best quantity since 12 February.

The second-wave peak for London was 7,917 on 18 January.

The UK has reported a report 189,846 Covid-19 instances within the final 24 hours, up greater than 600 on yesterday’s determine.

An extra 203 folks have additionally died inside 28 days of testing optimistic for Covid.

Greater than a dozen hospitals throughout the nation have briefly banned visits in efforts to guard sufferers and workers amid rising Covid infections.

Sufferers in London, Yorkshire and Essex are amongst those that will now not be capable to obtain guests as rising numbers of persons are bringing instances on to wards.

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Belief in London, which oversees College Hospital Lewisham and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, mentioned the choice had been “extraordinarily tough” to make.

Exemptions apply, together with for end-of-life care, girls giving delivery and kids being visited by their dad and mom.

The belief mentioned the restrictions, which got here into drive at 9am on Wednesday, can be stored underneath shut evaluation and relaxed as quickly as it’s protected to take action.

1000’s of flights inside the US and internationally have been delayed or cancelled early on Friday, including to the journey disruptions throughout the Christmas vacation week attributable to opposed climate and rising instances of the Omicron  variant.

Over 2,400 flights have been cancelled all over the world as of Friday, together with over 1,100 flights inside the US or getting into or departing it, in line with flight-tracking web site FlightAware.com. There have been practically 4,000 world flight delays in whole.

The Christmas holidays are usually a peak time for air journey, however the fast unfold of the extremely transmissible Omicron variant has led to a pointy improve in Covid infections, forcing airways to cancel flights as pilots and crew must be quarantined.

Officers have warned partygoers in Scotland and Wales to suppose twice earlier than travelling to England for New Yr’s Eve.

Boris Johnson has resisted tightening restrictions in England regardless of the fast unfold of the extremely transmissible omicron variant.

However Scotland, Wales and Northern Eire have set their very own public well being guidelines, imposed new restrictions this week that closed all nightclubs and restricted social gatherings. Bars and pubs have needed to return to desk service solely. In Edinburgh, which historically hosts certainly one of Europe’s largest New Yr’s Eve events, folks have been urged to remain at residence. 

Whereas no formal journey ban is in place to cease Scottish revellers from making their strategy to England on Friday, Scotland’s deputy chief John Swinney mentioned travelling could be the “flawed plan of action”.

The chance of hospitalisation with the Omicron variant is round a 3rd that of the Delta variant, new evaluation of greater than one million instances of each sorts in current weeks exhibits.

The evaluation was revealed by the UK Well being Safety Company, after it labored alongside Cambridge College MRC Biostatistics unit to analyse 528,176 Omicron instances and 573,012 Delta instances.

It additionally discovered that vaccines can work effectively in opposition to Omicron.

“On this evaluation, the danger of hospitalisation is decrease for Omicron instances with symptomatic or asymptomatic an infection after 2 and three doses of vaccine, with an 81 per cent … discount within the threat of hospitalisation after three doses in comparison with unvaccinated Omicron instances,” the UKHSA mentioned.

Susan Hopkins, Chief Medical Adviser at UKHSA, mentioned the evaluation was in step with different encouraging indicators on Omicron however mentioned the well being service might nonetheless battle with such excessive transmission charges.

“It stays too early to attract any definitive conclusions on hospital severity, and the elevated transmissibility of Omicron and the rising instances within the over 60s inhabitants in England means it stays extremely probably that there can be important stress on the NHS in coming weeks,” she mentioned.

A whole lot of trains are being faraway from timetables every day in an try to enhance reliability following weeks of short-notice cancellations.

At the very least eight operators have both already decreased frequencies on many routes or will accomplish that within the coming days in response to pandemic-related workers shortages.

Passengers travelling on New Yr’s Eve additionally face main disruption attributable to industrial motion.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union mentioned a 24-hour strike by its members employed by CrossCountry was “solidly supported”, inflicting the vast majority of the operator’s companies to be cancelled.

In current weeks rail companies throughout Britain have axed trains at quick discover attributable to workers self-isolating or unwell.

Many have responded by releasing condensed timetables in a bid to create extra certainty about which companies they’ll and can’t function.

A complete of 397,554 booster and third doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been reported within the UK on Thursday, new figures present.

Greater than 33.9 million booster and third doses have now been delivered within the UK, with 1.6 million prior to now seven days.

Round 64 per cent of all adults within the UK have now acquired a booster or third dose.

The figures have been revealed by the UK’s 4 well being businesses.

British households splurged on on-line purchasing, takeaways and quick meals, residence enhancements and spoiling their pets in 2021, a evaluation of transactions by Barclaycard has revealed.

The proportion of Covid-19 sufferers being handled primarily for the virus in England’s hospitals has dropped barely, new figures present.

Information from NHS England, revealed on Friday, exhibits that, of the 8,321 sufferers with coronavirus in NHS acute hospital trusts in England on December 28, 5,578 (67 per cent) have been being handled primarily for Covid.

That is down from 71 per cent every week earlier and 74 per cent initially of December.

However the quantity being handled primarily for coronavirus remains to be rising – up 26 per cent from 4,432 on December 21 to five,578 on December 28.

The statistics additionally present that the variety of sufferers with Covid-19 however primarily being handled for one thing else additionally rose from 1,813 to 2,743, a bounce of 51 per cent.

NHS England has mentioned that Covid sufferers primarily being handled for one thing else nonetheless should be separated from non-Covid sufferers and the virus will be “a major co-morbidity”.