The ‘Nightingale’ hospitals are back – at least the government is taking the threat to the NHS seriously

Editorial: It is still perfectly possible that Omicron could overwhelm the hospitals

Construction workers begin building a Nightingale ‘surge hub’ at St George’s Hospital in southwest London on Thursday (PA)

Amidst the warm upbeat talk from ministers about “cautious celebrations” (surely an oxymoron) and the new year party preparations, at least in England, intrudes a chill air. The “Nightingale” hospitals are back.

Not, mercifully, in their original form, as vast warehouse-style accommodation for mass Covid victims struggling for breath, but as smaller “Nightingale surge hubs”, set up in car parks and other spaces outside major hospitals across England to deal with an expected rise in demand for hospital beds. They will be temporary structures, and may not be needed. On the other hand…

As far as can be judged, the wave of cases expected after the emergence of the more infective Omicron variant has indeed not yet converted into a proportionately large spike in hospitalisations and mortality. This is also expected, given that the consensus is that Omicron seems to cause very severe illness in fewer cases than Delta – and where those illnesses occur, they tend to be shorter than in past waves – also due to leaps forward in Covid treatments and clinical techniques.