#16,459
With the caveat that the UK's Health Security Agency is reporting Incomplete data for cases due to the holidays, we have new updates today for the first time since Friday, Dec 24th, and they show an increase of over 321,000 cases over the weekend.
Today's Omicron Daily Overview adds another 45,000+ confirmed cases, along with increases in Omicron-related hospitalizations (+41) and deaths (+10) since Friday's report. All of these numbers, however, are likely under counts.
Some of the data in today's report is either incomplete, or is only current to Dec. 23rd, 24th, or 25th. Between the Christmas and New Year's Holidays, we can expect to see a greater lag in reporting than normal, which probably won't normalize until sometime next week.
In the case of Hospital admissions (see UK COVID Dashboard chart below), that data appears to be current only to Dec. 20th, making it difficult to compare its rise to that of positive cases.
Add in the 10 to 14 day lag between infection and being sick enough to be hospitalized, and it may be awhile before we can say much definitive about Omicron's impact on hospital admittance.
