Sir Neil Ferguson interview, report from the Guardian, says 10-15% are reinfections so that's rather more significant than 7%?
48m ago 09:36
Up to 15% of Omicron cases are reinfections, says Ferguson
And here is a full summary of the lines from Prof Neil Ferguson’s interview on the Today programme.
But he said hospital admissions may take longer to plateau than case numbers because older people were infected later. He explained:
This epidemic has spread so quickly [in the 18-50 age group] it hasn’t had time to really spread into the older age groups which are at much, much greater risk of severe outcomes and hospitalisation. So we may see a different pattern in hospitalisations. Hospitalisations are still generally going up across the country and we may see high levels for for some weeks.
He said shortage of tests may have kept Covid case numbers lower than they otherwise would have been. He said:
[Case numbers are] not as useful as they used to be because there has been, frankly, demand management of cases by region, which means we’ve been running out of tests. And so in some regions, as we’ve heard over Christmas, numbers of tests have been limited. So almost certainly case numbers, true infection rates, have been much higher than [the published figures].
He said up to 15% of Omicron cases were reinfections. He said the official headline case numbers did not include reinfections. But the scientists did see the reinfection numbers, he said.
The data we see includes reinfections. Between 10 and 15% of Omicron cases are reinfections, so you have to just interpret the numbers through that lens.
He said school reopening was likely to lead to an increase in Omicron infections in children. He explained:
The Delta infections in the last few months have been really driven by school-age children and by the older age groups in the population.
Omicron slipped in the middle in 18 to 45-year-olds really but it didn’t have much time to get into schoolchildren before schools shut and we expect to now see quite high infection levels, of mild infection I should emphasise, in school-age children.
Omicron may have plateaued amongst under-50s in London, says Prof Neil Ferguson
Medium confidence is probably also good way of summing up Prof Neil Ferguson’s overall mood when he was interviewed on the Today programme this morning. Ferguson, the Imperial College epidemiologist whose modelling is closely followed by government, said he was “cautiously optimistic” that the Omicron pandemic may have plateaued in London (where cases have been highest) amongst the under-50s. He told the programme:
I think I’m cautiously optimistic that infection rates in London in that key 18-50 age group, which has been driving the Omicron epidemic, may possibly have plateaued, it’s too early to say whether they’re going down yet.
And this is what he said when he was asked whether he thought, overall, the effect of Omicron was as bad as originally feared, or whether it was better. He replied:
I think the good news here is it is certainly less severe. We think, if you’ve never been infected before, never had a vaccine, [there is] about a one third drop in the risk of just any hospital admission, probably a two thirds drop in the risk of dying from Omicron. So [it is] substantially less severe. And that has helped us undoubtedly. We would be seeing much higher infection case numbers in hospital otherwise.
And vaccines, as we always expected they would, are holding up against severe outcomes well.
Well that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be, as the prime minister said, a difficult few weeks for the NHS.