With more than 60 countries now reporting cases, omicron has policymakers scrambling. Compared to delta, this new variant is likely to be more infectious and less responsive to one or two doses of a COVID vaccine. It remains unclear how severely ill it makes people. Reports from South Africa suggestContinue Reading
The omicron variant of COVID is now spreading rapidly. Early reports suggest omicron causes less severe disease than other variants but it still poses a risk to the most vulnerable, with patients starting to arrive in hospitals. Omicron also appears to have some ability to get around existing immunity, whetherContinue Reading
There are some misconceptions about what the four hour target actually means. Medical-R/ Shutterstock People who attend accident and emergency (A&E) departments in the UK are supposed to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours. But these targets haven’t been hit in England since 2015. In October of thisContinue Reading
Yurchanka Siarhei/Shutterstock With the highly mutated omicron variant spreading rapidly, people want to know if immunity from vaccination or a prior infection will be enough to protect them against getting infected or developing severe disease. If prior immunity does provide sufficient protection, then precautionary measures to slow omicron’s spread, togetherContinue Reading
Genview Diagnosis medical assistants Crystal Leyva (L), and Keitia Perez administer COVID-19 sampling tests, to laboratory technicians, at Foxconn Assembly on August 13, 2021 in Houston, Texas. Brandon Bell | Getty Images Several southern U.S. states, including Texas, Georgia, Louisiana and Florida, have confirmed cases of the omicron Covid-19 variant asContinue Reading
OMICRON cases in the province in South Africa where the variant is first thought to have emerged may have peaked, data shows. The figures could be ‘good news’ for Brits, after Prime Minister Boris Johnson was last night forced to implement Plan B to stop the variant spreading. The chartContinue Reading
Lab technicians in the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Russia. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images It’s been two weeks since South Africa reported the omicron Covid variant to the World Health Organization and now it’s spreading around the globe. In the last fortnight, experts haveContinue Reading
A year ago, Margaret Keenan made history. On December 8 2020, she became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine outside of a clinical trial. Ninety-year-old Keenan described it as the “best early birthday present”. It was a moment of shining hope in what had beenContinue Reading
Richard M Lee/Shutterstock There are fears that the new omicron variant of the coronavirus could be the most transmissible form of the virus yet, so infection control measures are being tightened – face coverings, for example, are now mandatory again in England on public transport and in shops. When legallyContinue Reading
Jacob Lund/Shutterstock No one can ever know for sure when life will return to normal after a particular event, not least because what’s normal keeps on changing, even in normal times. Nevertheless, it’s a question we can’t help pondering – particularly when new COVID developments, such as the emergence ofContinue Reading
