UK Daily Omicron Update (Dec. 24th)

 

#16,449

With the caveat that this will be the last COVID update from the UK until December 27th, and that update will likely be missing data due to the holidays, the UK is reporting yet another record daily COVID case count (n=122,186), largely driven by the Omicron variant. 

Confirmed cases are up 48.2% over the past week, and that is likely an undercount.  Hospitalizations are up as well, but only by 8.2%. 

Hospitalization usually occurs 7 to 10 days post infection - making it a lagging indicator - but reports of milder infection with Omicron may also help keep those numbers from climbing as fast as confirmed cases. 

Today's Omicron Daily Overview indicates another 23,719 confirmed cases, along with increases in Omicron-related hospitalizations and deaths.  All of these numbers, however, are likely under counts. 

Doubling times of Omicron (based on SGTF) continue to run under 2.5 days, although this will likely grow as the number of susceptible hosts begin to dwindle, and fewer people mingle after the holidays. 

Reporting from the UK will be interrupted again next weekend (Jan 1st-3rd) for the New Year's Holiday, meaning that we probably won't have a very good handle on the increase in cases, hospitalizations and deaths until early in January.