Piercing the gloom comes good news this Christmas. The first real time, as opposed to modelled, data currently indicates that the omicron variant is producing a milder form of Covid than the delta strain. Hospitalisations are reduced by as much as two thirds, demonstrating the power of the vaccines. Indeed, the booster is an impressive barrier against getting ill at all.

The bad news is that because omicron spreads more rapidly it is infecting more people, some of whom will fall seriously ill and end up in hospital. The latest figures show positive daily cases over 100,000 for the first time.

It is the concern that rising numbers will overwhelm hospital intensive care units that is driving the latest set of controls and risking a further lockdown in the New Year.

A study of data from Scotland reinforces what has already been seen in South Africa, that even though omicron is becoming the dominant strain, more people are likely to have a mild illness with less serious symptoms. 

This raises the obvious question as to why some people are getting seriously ill when there is a vaccine available to mitigate the impact. As hospital doctors have been saying for months now, a significant proportion of those in intensive care have not been vaccinated.

The refusal by some to get the jab is now becoming a key political issue. Entreaties from politicians for a greater take up among those who have so far declined the vaccine appear to fall on deaf ears.

Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has called this a moral issue because it is not only the refuseniks who are harmed by their stand but everyone else. A Covid victim ending up in an ICU bed is potentially depriving someone else – a heart attack victim, for instance – of treatment.

The new information demonstrates that we can live with omicron and that the Cabinet was right to push back against even tougher measures in England over Christmas. Yet lockdowns are now spreading around Europe despite signs that this variant is a benign development in the pandemic.

By panicking about omicron we are in great danger of turning what is good news against ourselves. In view of the latest data any move towards another lockdown would be totally unacceptable and Boris Johnson should continue to resist pressure to do so.