By PTI
LONDDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday said the Cabinet was monitoring COVID-19 data “hour by hour” as the country recorded another record high of daily coronavirus infections at 91,743.
Speaking after a lengthy Cabinet meeting, Johnson told reporters that the government “won’t hesitate” to introduce tougher lockdown measures ahead of Christmas amid an ongoing surge in coronavirus cases.
But he declared that some things need to be clearer around the Omicron variant before further action is taken.
“Unfortunately I must say to people that we will have to reserve the possibility of taking further action to protect the public, to protect public health, to protect our NHS,” said Johnson.
“There are still some things that we need to be clearer about before we decide to go further” At the moment what I think we want people to focus on is exercising caution, so ventilation, masks in the appropriate places, all the usual stuff about washing hands, but remember how contagious Omicron really is,” he said.
Johnson said the data is “under constant review” amid an “extremely difficult” situation, with the arguments either way being “very, very finely balanced” as hospital admissions continue to rise in London.
“Those who are unvaccinated, whether out of apathy, for whatever reason, please think of this as a great thing to do for you and your family,” said Johnson, as he reiterated his message for people to get their COVID vaccines and also “get boosted now” if already vaccinated.
“We’ll keep the economic side of this under review as well,” he added.
The UK’s hospitality industry has been calling for financial support amid mass cancellations as people avoid crowds during what is usually their busiest time of the year over Christmas.
Britain’s main nurses’ union warned Monday that exhaustion and surging coronavirus cases among medical staff are pushing them to breaking point, adding to pressure on the government for new restrictions to bring down record-high infection numbers driven by the omicron variant.
Patricia Marquis, England director for the Royal College of Nursing union, said the situation over the next few weeks looked “very bleak,” as growing absences from sickness and self-isolation hit hospitals struggling to clear a backlog of postponed procedures and treat normal winter sicknesses alongside coronavirus cases.
“In many places they’re already under immense stress and pressure, and so they are starting to go off sick themselves with COVID, but also mental and physical exhaustion,” she told the BBC.
“So, staff are looking forward now thinking, Oh my goodness, what is coming?'” Having repeatedly promised that there will be no repeat of last year’s lockdown-marred Christmas, Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces an agonising choice: wreck the holiday plans of millions or face a tidal wave of cases and disruption.
Many governments in Europe and the US face similar dilemmas about how hard to come down on omicron, which appears more transmissible than the previous delta variant that itself led to surges in many parts of the world.
Early evidence suggests omicron may also produce less serious illness, though scientists caution it is too soon to say, and that it could better evade vaccine protection.
Even if it generally causes fewer serious cases, omicron could still overwhelm health systems because of the sheer number of infections.
But many political leaders are reluctant to impose the stiff measures they resorted to earlier in the pandemic, often because they promised their people that vaccines would offer a way out of such restrictions and it may be politically untenable to impose them again.
In the US, the prospect of a winter chilled by a wave of coronavirus infections is a severe reversal from the optimism projected by President Joe Biden some 10 months ago, when he suggested that the country would essentially be back to normal by this Christmas.
France is desperately trying to avoid a new lockdown that would hurt the economy and cloud President Emmanuel Macron’s expected re-election campaign.
Meanwhile, Johnson, whose authority has been hammered by weeks of political scandals, is caught between calls from scientific advisers for new limits on social interaction now, and vociferous opposition within his Conservative Party to any such restrictions.
Earlier this month, Johnson’s government reinstated rules requiring face masks in shops and ordered people to show proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test before entering nightclubs and other crowded venues.
But many scientists say tougher action is needed.
UK Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said Monday he could not “make hard and fast guarantees” that new restrictions would not be announced this week.
Government ministers are discussing several options, ranging from non-binding guidance for people to limit festive gatherings to mandatory social distancing and curfews for bars and restaurants.
The speed of omicron’s spread in the UK, where cases are doubling about every two days, is decimating the economy in the busy pre-Christmas period.
Usually teeming theatres and restaurants are being hit by cancellations.
Some eateries and pubs have closed until after the holidays because so many staff are off sick or self-isolating.
The Natural History Museum, one of London’s leading attractions, said Monday it was closing for a week because of “front-of-house staff shortages”.
The hospitality industry is urging the government to offer financial support, as it did earlier in the pandemic with grants, loans and a scheme that paid the salaries of millions of furloughed workers.
Those programmes were wound down after Britain lifted restrictions in the summer.
The Dutch government began a tough nationwide lockdown on Sunday to rein in sharply rising infections, at least partially attributed to the omicron variant.
But other European countries have opted for something less.
France and Germany have barred most British travellers from entering.
Ireland imposed an 8 pm curfew on pubs and bars and limited attendance at indoor and outdoor events.
These countries are warily watching the UK, which for now appears among the places most dramatically hit by the omicron variant.
Confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK have surged by 50% in a week.
The government on Sunday reported 82,886 more lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in a day.
With over 147,000 deaths, Britain has Europe’s highest COVID-19 death toll after Russia.
The number of hospitalisations is growing much more slowly, but medical groups are warning that hospitals are already under strain in London, hardest-hit so far by the omicron-driven wave.
The British Medical Association has warned that almost 50,000 doctors, nurses and other National Health Service staff in England could be off sick with COVID-19 by Christmas Day unless additional measures are introduced.
Medics’ time and energy are also being diverted to delivering vaccine boosters, in keeping with early data that the extra shot helps protect against the variant.
Johnson has set a goal of offering everyone 18 and up a booster by the end of December.
More than 900,000 booster shots were delivered on Sunday, as soccer stadiums, shopping centres and cathedrals were turned into temporary inoculation clinics.
Researchers in the UK are using new ways to rapidly develop and mass manufacture mRNA vaccines and therapeutics at low cost against COVID-19 and a range of other diseases.
The research project will boost the UK’s and the world’s ability to rapidly develop new vaccines in response to new variants of COVID-19 and also future pandemics.
In non-emergency times, the new production technology will give developers and manufacturers access to the state-of-the-art processes needed to produce new vaccines and treatments for other major diseases such as cancer, metabolic disorders, cardiovascular conditions and autoimmune diseases much faster, the University of Sheffield said in a statement on Sunday.
“The vaccines produced for COVID-19 have shown us what is possible using RNA technology. In one of the greatest scientific accomplishments of our generation, RNA technology has demonstrated the ability to change the timeline for developing and delivering a vaccine from years to months,” said the lead researcher Zoltan Kis from the university’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.
“This is a versatile and transformative technology that can be used to develop and mass-produce vaccines and treatments for other diseases. To achieve this, we need to ensure that researchers across the globe have access to the very latest, state-of-the-art RNA manufacturing processes to support their research, development and large-scale production programmes,” Kis said.
The new vaccine production unit at the varsity will form a central part of Wellcome Leap’s R3 programme, which is aiming to establish a network of vaccine manufacturing facilities across the world to increase the number of RNA-based treatments that are designed, developed and produced each year.
The network will also be capable of rapidly producing new vaccines as and when needed in response to future pandemics.
“COVID-19 has shown us how important it is to be prepared so we can respond to pandemics quickly. By improving the way we can make vaccines and by distributing these production processes across the globe we will be able to respond to future pandemics much faster and a lot more effectively,” Kis said.
“In non-pandemic times, these production processes implemented across the globe can be used to produce vaccine and therapeutic candidates that we desperately need against a wide range of diseases,” the lead researcher added.
