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Health secretary Sajid Javid said on Monday (December 6) there is now community transmission of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus across regions of England but it is too early to say if this will "knock us off our road to recovery". Defending the introduction of stricter rules to slow the spread of the virus, Javid told parliament that the government was "leaving nothing to chance" while scientists assessed the variant, which was first reported in South Africa last month. Javid said there are now 261 Omicron cases in England, 71 in Scotland and four in Wales - a total of 336. "This includes cases with no links to international travel, so we can conclude there is now community transmission across multiple regions of England," Javid said. Prime minister Boris Johnson said on Monday no further restrictions were currently needed to deal with the Omicron variant, but refused to rule out imposing such measures before Christmas.

Britain on Tuesday (January 4) faced warnings of an impending hospital crisis due to staff shortages caused by a wave of Omicron infections, as the country returned to work after Christmas. However, Britain's vaccine minister said hospitalised Covid-19 patients were showing less severe symptoms than before, adding that there was no need for further restrictions at this stage. Prime minister Boris Johnson resisted imposing stringent lockdown measures in England ahead of New Year as Omicron fuelled a spike in cases to record highs. While hospitalisations are rising they have not tracked the trajectory of daily cases, possibly reflecting the impact of vaccines and booster shots, the likely lower severity of Omicron and the time lag in people going into hospital. "At the moment, if you look at the people who have been hospitalised, they are going in with less severe conditions than before," minister for Vaccines and Public Health Maggie Throup told Sky News, adding that the "Plan B" Johnson brought in in December was working. "The numbers that are in hospital beds is about half what it was a year ago - and that just shows the power of the vaccine."

Two new subvariants of Omicron - BA.4 and BA.5 - are spreading much faster than other corovanirus variants in Europe, which could lead to more hospitalisations and deaths as they become dominant, the EU's disease prevention agency said on Monday (June 13). Most EU countries have so far detected low rates of the two subgroups. But in countries where the proportion has risen - such as Portugal, where BA.5 accounted for 87 per cent of cases by May 30 - there have been surges in overall cases, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The two sublineages were added to the World Health Organization's monitoring list in March and have also been designated as variants of concern by the ECDC. Variants BA.4 and BA.5 do not appear to carry a higher risk of severe disease than other forms of Omicron.But an increase in case numbers from higher transmission rates risks leading to an increase in hospitalisations and deaths, the agency said. "The growth advantage reported for BA.4 and BA.5 suggest that these variants will become dominant," ECDC said in a statement on its website.

Britain has started counting possible Covid-19 reinfections in its daily coronavirus data, changing its approach to reflect the increased number of people catching the disease for a second time as the Omicron variant predominates. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) added around 840,000 cases to the cumulative total, taking it to 17.3 million coronavirus infections reported. Britain's daily Covid statistics previously would only count people who had tested positive for the first time to avoid double-counting people who had received multiple positive test results for the same infection. However, with variants such as Omicron leading to an increase in reinfections, the UKHSA said it would change its method to treat positive tests as separate infections if there was at least 90 days between test results. The change took effect on Monday (January 31). "Reinfection remained at very low levels until the start of the Omicron wave. It is right that our daily reporting processes reflect how the virus has changed," said Steven Riley, UKHSA's Director General of Data and Analytics.

The 21st edition of the Pharmacy Business Awards have been postponed due to a dramatic rise in the number of Omicron cases nationwide in recent months. The in-person event - initially scheduled to be held on February 3 - will now be held on Wednesday March 23 in central London. The awards dinner hosted by the Asian Media Group - owners of Pharmacy Business - was initially scheduled to be held on February 3. "Given the uncertainties around Omicron and the impact it could have on our community, we have taken the difficult decision to postpone the twenty-first edition of the Pharmacy Business Awards," an AMG spokesperson said, adding: "We feel this is the best and safest decision for our award winners, guests and partners."

The minimum Covid-19 self-isolation period in England will be cut to five days from seven if someone tests negative twice, health secretary Sajid Javid said on Thursday (January 13) - a move that could reduce staffing disruption in businesses and infrastructure. The rapid spread of the Omicron variant has fuelled a spike in Covid-19 cases to record highs in Britain, and the surge has cause major disruption to the staffing of hospitals, schools and transport as staff have to self-isolate. "We've made the decision to reduce the minimum self-isolation period to five full days in England," Javid told parliament. "From Monday, people can test twice before they go, leaving isolation at the start of day six." The government had previously reduced isolation period to seven days from 10 days to people in England who get a negative result on a rapid lateral flow test two days in a row.

The NHS Confederation has urged the government to reconsider its 'living with Covid' plan and introduce mitigating actions that will help avoid further critical incidents being declared at the NHS front-line. The organisation said the high rates of Covid is having a major impact on the delivery of health services and slowing down efforts to reduce large waiting lists, noting that the country has been in the grip of another spike in Covid cases resulting from the Omicron BA.2 variant. With more than 20,000 patients now in hospital with Covid (or who have Covid but are in hospital for other reasons) and high staff absences, NHS is facing huge operational challenges, harming efforts to reduce waiting times in other areas, it said.