The omicron variant could cause more hospitalisations and deaths than were recorded at the peak of last winter’s Covid second wave unless restrictions are tightened further, new modelling suggests.

A projection by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine predicts that in the most  optimistic scenario – taking into account the Government’s Plan B measures – there could be about 2,400 daily hospital admissions in England in January alone.

However, the most pessimistic scenario projects peak admissions of twice as high as last January, when hospitalisations were just over 3,000. The scientists also predicted there could be anywhere between 25,000 and 75,000 deaths over the next five months.

Only by reintroducing tougher lockdown-style measures of the sort in place last Christmas does the model keep hospitalisations and deaths below the peak of the last wave in all but the best-case scenario. The authors acknowledge such restrictions would bring an indirect set of harms of their own. 

The authors acknowledge that such restrictions would bring an indirect set of harms of their own.

“Our projections are worrying. It doesn’t paint a very optimistic picture” said Dr Nicholas Davies, one of the paper’s authors.

“We’re worried on the one hand about the potential epidemiological impact of the variant and we’re worried, on the other hand about the potential consequences of of control measures that the government may decide to bring in in order to avert these outcomes.

“So I’m worried … as I was the time of the alpha variant last year”.

Little time to act as variant so fast-moving 

At a press briefing, the researchers, who also sit on the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) sub-group of Sage, stressed there remains much uncertainly about how things will unfold because not enough is yet known about omicron.

Nevertheless, there was little time to act as the omicron strain is moving so fast, they said.

The team used experimental data to predict how omicron may spread this winter and spring under the new mask-wearing and home working restrictions, as well as the increased booster jab rollout.

In the most optimistic scenario – based on the virus proving less able to evade antibodies and booster jabs giving more protection – the modellers projected a possible peak of more than 2,000 daily hospital admissions, resulting in a total of 175,000 hospital admissions and 24,700 deaths between December 1 this year and April 30, 2022.

At present, there are 680 hospital admissions a day, with around 730 deaths each week.