A serious discourse in the face of the evolution of the health situation. In a televised address *, Sunday, December 12, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a marked acceleration of the vaccine campaign in the face of a rapid and worrying increase in the number of cases of Covid-19 linked to the Omicron variant. The conservative leader wants to offer a booster dose to all adults by the end of the year.
“No one should doubt it: there is an Omicron tidal wave coming, and I fear it is now clear that two doses of vaccine are not enough to provide the level of protection we all have. need.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnsonduring a televised address
Between a spread “phenomenal” According to the British Minister of Health Sajid Javid and a start of the recall campaign deemed too slow, which elements make the British authorities fear a “tsunami” linked to the Omicron variant? Response elements.
Because Omicron will soon be the dominant variant across the Channel
As recognized by the British government *, the number of infections linked to the Omicron variant “now doubles every two to three days” across the Channel. On Sunday, health authorities identified 3,137 cases of Omicron in the United Kingdom, an increase of 65% from Saturday. The actual number of cases linked to this variant could actually be much higher. According to the government, “the Omicron variant will become the dominant variant by mid-December”. In London, this strain on Sars-CoV-2 now represents a third of infections, according to the British Secretary of State for Education, Nadhim Zahawi, interviewed by the BBC *.
“Early evidence shows that Omicron spreads much faster than Delta and that vaccine protection against symptomatic diseases of Omicron is reduced.”
Health officials from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Irelandin a press release
Across the Channel, the alert level was thus raised from three to four, the second highest level. This step is the sign of a transmission “high” virus and pressure on health services “significant or increasing”. “We have seen hospitalizations double in one week in South Africa. As I speak, we have patients with the Omicron variant in hospital here in the UK.”, Boris Johnson insisted during his speech. On Monday morning, the Prime Minister announced that a first patient affected by this variant had died.
Over the next few weeks, the Omicron variant could “overwhelm the health system”, worries epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, quoted by The Guardian*. The teacher of Imperial College in London, one of the thinkers of health restrictions across the Channel, evokes in the worst case up to 10,000 daily hospitalizations linked to the variant. And, at a minimum, “a multiplication of current daily admissions”.
Because the number of contaminations is already high because of the Delta variant
The spread of the Omicron variant is all the more worrying given that the level of contamination has been at a relatively high level in the United Kingdom for several months, especially in comparison with France.
On Sunday, health authorities reported a sliding seven-day average of 51,124 new daily cases across the Channel, reports the OurWorldinData * site. The contaminations curve has been rising since November 10, approaching the daily contaminations record recorded last January, at around 59,000 cases per day on average.
The number of hospitalized patients, in decline since early November, has been on the rise again for several days, as have new hospital admissions in England. On Wednesday, 714 people were admitted to English hospitals, according to OurWorldinData *. In total, 7,413 Covid-19 patients were hospitalized across the Channel on Thursday, according to the same source.
Because the vaccination booster campaign is not fast enough
To provide this boost to the vaccine campaign, Boris Johnson promised that “the vaccination centers will multiply, their hours will be extended, soldiers will be deployed and thousands of vaccinators will be trained”. A speech made for several days by the British authorities, faced with the need to act faster on recalls.
At the end of November, the UK Committee on Vaccination and Immunization advised authorities to open access to the booster dose to all adults and reduce the timeframe from six to three months between the second and third dose. in the face of the progression of the Omicron variant, reports the Guardian *. The latest British data indeed suggest a protection of 70 to 75% against this variant after the booster, against 30 to 40% for a person who received his second dose at least three months ago.
In the days following these recommendations, the government offered access to the recall campaign to adults over 40 years of age three months after their second dose. Then appointments were offered to Britons over 30 years old. Either access to the third dose for ten million people, underlines the British Health Service * (NHS).
“We urgently need to strengthen our vaccine protection wall to protect our friends and loved ones.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnsonduring a televised address
According to The Guardian* This boost involves the administration of a million doses every day across the Channel, against 530,000 recorded on Saturday. At this point, 34.5% of the entire UK population has received a third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
This recall campaign, launched in September for the first eligible audiences, “was much slower than the initial vaccination program” across the Channel, at the beginning of November British Medical Journal*. As of November 1, 5.8 million Britons eligible for a booster dose had not yet received it, according to the same source.
This start can be explained, among other things, by “the lack of a sense of urgency for some members of the eligible public”, emphasizes the review. Other factors are mentioned, such as a juxtaposition of the stages of the vaccination campaign, between first doses for some and booster doses for others, as well as insufficient consideration of general practitioners as actors in this campaign.
* Links marked with an asterisk refer to articles in English.