Omicron is sending Covid case numbers surging ( a new high of 189,000 cases reported yesterday) and hospital admissions along with it. But another important piece of data, intensive care admissions, shows a significant fall. This is early data, but worth noting as it may be part of an important trend. And it adds context to comments by Chris Hopson, Chief executive of NHS Providers, that the system may be better prepared than case numbers suggest.
First let’s look at London; the Omicron epicentre. Hospital figures are rising fast – in part due to patients who are being primarily treated for something else (blue, below – that is now true for a third of Covid hospital patients in England).
But look at critical care beds. If you look at those used for Covid patients, there’s a mild uptick but nothing compared to what we saw last year. For all critical beds in use, there’s a clear decoupling from last year’s rise:
We see the same in the figures across England: Covid hospitalisation figures rising but ICU usage falling.
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