Covid restrictions needed until February to combat omicron, senior government scientist warns

Ministers said to be considering further restrictions in bid to slow spread of new variant

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England can expect up to eight more weeks of Covid measures in response to the growing spread of the omicron variant, a leading government scientist has said.

Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser at the UK Heath Security Agency (UKHSA), said “some level” of restrictions would likely be needed until February and warned that the country faces "a very difficult four weeks ahead", with rising case numbers both in the community and in hospitals.

Some 200,000 people are thought to have been infected with omicron on Tuesday, according to the UKHSA. By next week, it’s expected that daily cases will have surpassed the one million mark.

Meanwhile, modelling from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) has suggested that up to 75,000 people could die from Covid between now and April – a wave of fatalities higher than that seen during last winter.

With the government said to be considering further measures to slow the spread of omicron, which is capable of infecting those vaccinated with two doses, Dr Hopkins told a parliamentary select committee that measures will be needed for up to two months.

“The modelling that the London School has done, I would expect that there's going to be needing some level of restrictions in place for the next four to eight weeks,” she told MPs.

Officials remain in the dark about when the current wave will peak and how high it will reach. Professor Steven Riley, director general for data, analytics and surveillance at UKHSA, said the UK’s “very high levels of infection are time limited”, but cautioned that is was difficult to predict the “speed with which we actually peak”.

“If the exponential growth continues for very much longer than we'll expect other processes to come into play and we wouldn't necessarily expect it to be a very rapid epidemic,” he told the Science and Technology Committee.

“If we look back through the earlier ways, what we observe in the behaviour data, in the movement data, and then later on reflected in the disease data is that people adapt their behaviour and the rate slows down.

“The evidence from the UK and around the world is that people tend to change their behaviour and naturally reduce infection.”

Dr Hopkins said that omicron would “displace delta” but in some regions the two variants would be circulating at the same time.

Concerns around omicron have been deepened by data that suggest the growth rate of the variant is actually shortening in the UK. "This is growing very fast with a growth rate of initially two to three days, and that growth rate seems to be shortening rather than lengthening," Dr Hopkins said.

"We are concerned with the large volume of individuals who are being infected every day in the population that we are going to have a very difficult four weeks ahead with cases in the community which will, of course, cause individuals to stay off work and school, and then those cases to transfer into admissions to hospital."

Asked if infection from omicron could bolster immunity against the delta variant, Dr Hopkins replied: "There will be protection, I think, from severe disease if you've had one variant or the other, but these new variants may not protect you from mild disease. And may not protect you from transmitting to others."

The comments come as new research suggests that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine have provided 70 per cent protection against hospitalisation from Covid-19 in recent weeks in South Africa.

The study was conducted by Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest private health insurance administrator, and was based on some 211,000 positive Covid-19 test results dated from 15 November through 7 December.

At least 78,000 cases included in the study were attributed to the omicron variant, suggesting that the Pfizer jab offers good protection against hospitalisation and severe illness from the new variant of concern.

Those who have been boosted are expected to be far better protected, scientists believe.