Nicola Sturgeon has said that Scotland should expect a ‘tsunami’ of Covid cases, so has said Christmas parties should be cancelled and household contacts of any positive case — Omicron or not — should isolate for ten days regardless of vaccination status. Given that Scotland and England have very similar Covid profiles (both in waves and vaccination) this is relevant to the whole of the UK. But what especially jumps out is the prediction from Scottish government modelling that Omicron will account for all Covid cases by Christmas.
Her document: Omicron in Scotland — evidence paper released during Sturgeon’s TV appearance pointed to modelling to suggest that half of new cases could be Omicron by Monday.
What remains to be seen is the severity of the Omicron illness. Is it worse than Delta, or far milder?
By Christmas 100 per cent of cases would be Omicron under the modelled scenario. They work this out by looking for one trait of Omicron: the S-gene dropout (PCR tests look for three markers: the S-gene is one of those three.
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