Covid: New Hope London wins war on Omicron

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The operations office grew on Monday as the capital was winning the battle against Omicron as official figures showed confirmed cases were falling among Londoners over the age of 60 who are most vulnerable to contracting the virus.

The number of Covid patients in hospitals in the city has also decreased.

The latest infection figures also gave more weight to the Omicron wave that peaked in London – as suggested in the benchmark last Tuesday – with 16,493 new confirmed cases announced on Sunday, the lowest number since 12,832 on December 14.

Crucially, the seven-day infection rate for Londoners aged 60 and over, who are more susceptible to the virus than younger age groups, may now decline.

It has fallen for two consecutive days from 1,324 confirmed cases per 100,000 on January 2 to 1,272 for the week to the fourth, which may be due to less mixing between generations after the Christmas holidays.

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For Londoners aged 59 and under, it rose from 1879 to 1906, reversing the recent trend between these two large age groups, but numbers for both are expected to decline in the coming days.

London’s head of public health Professor Kevin Fenton told The Standard: “The latest data suggests that London may have passed the peak of the Omicron infection wave.

“In the past two days, we have seen a decline in case numbers in over 60 years and this is a promising sign that we continue to follow.

“However, overall case numbers are still very high and are currently fluctuating at a high level, so Omicron is continuing and we are not seeing the rapid decline we would have liked, which means London is still under pressure.”

He added: “For this reason, it is important that all of us Londoners do everything we can to keep Omicron on a downward trajectory by implementing important Plan B measures – wearing face coverings as recommended, working from home where possible, testing regularly and isolating Self-administer at home if you are sick, and vaccinate with the first dose, the second dose and booster, even if you have had Covid-19 before.”

The government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, stressed that a decline in infections among the elderly is key when the threat from Omicron reaches its peak, even if total cases decline early on.

In other good news, the number of new coronavirus patients in London fell to 312 on Friday, compared to a recent high of 511 on December 29.

The number of Covid patients in the capital also decreased to 3,867 on Sunday, from 4,074 on January 5, with 224 patients too sick to use ventilators, compared to 245 on the sixth day.

The number of coronavirus patients in intensive care was much lower than in previous waves, with a series of studies showing that Omicron is milder than the delta variant.

About a third of Covid patients are hospitalized mainly for other health reasons.

Dr Raghib Ali, a clinical epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge, tweeted: “More good news about hospitalizations in England, with every region now declining or declining.

“It’s too early to call the peak as cases over 60 are still increasing nationally, but these too are starting to stabilize (and fall in London) so things are moving in the right direction.”

Some experts say Omicron could be the start of Covid’s transformation from being a pandemic to an endemic disease like the flu, if future mutations are milder.

However, while the Omicron wave may have peaked in London, it may be on a plateau at the moment with a high level of infections.

The impact of returning to school and the workplace after the holiday season has not been fully shown in official figures which tend to fall on weekends, although social mixing during the new year should now be evident in the data.

Test backlogs may also have affected the numbers.

However, more and more people are getting a booster injection, as well as some taking their first and second doses, and it is expected that many more people taking omicron will put pressure on the spread of the disease.

Evidence from South Africa suggests that once cases start declining, they can drop sharply, although this has not yet occurred in London, which may be due to increased social mixing in early January.

If cases begin to drop rapidly, calls to work from home and other restrictions will increase.

But London may still find itself economically hampered by such measures if it first emerges from the Omicron wave and other regions continue to be hit hard as the government adopts a national approach to the restrictions.

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