UK Records First Omicron Death As New Variant Spreads Rapidly
At least one person has been reported dead after contracting the Omicron variant, as the country launched an ambitious Covid booster shot programme to stop the virus spiralling out of control.
On a visit to a vaccination centre in west London, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Omicron accounted for about 40 percent of the cases in the British capital, and hospital admissions were rising.
“Sadly, at least one patient has been confirmed to have died with Omicron,” he told reporters, a day after warning that the country faces a “tidal wave” of infection.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) told AFP: “It appears indeed that this is the first confirmed Omicron death.”
But the Centre said many cases around the world were not genome-sequenced, so it was “impossible to know whether this is the first Omicron death”.
In South Africa, where the virus mutation was first identified, no deaths linked to Omicron have been officially announced, the department of health said.
Britain — one of the worst-hit countries with 146,000 Covid deaths since last year — on Sunday sounded the alarm because of high levels and rising rates of transmission.
Johnson said in a rare televised address that emergency measures were needed to prevent hospitals becoming overwhelmed in the weeks ahead.
All adults can now receive a third Covid vaccine by the end of December — a month earlier than a previous government deadline.fb
Long queues were seen at London clinics. Some 500,000 booster jabs were administered on Saturday but to hit the new deadline that number will have to be doubled to a million per day for the remainder of the year to slow the spread.
Concerns have mounted about a new wave because of indications that two jabs are less effective against infection than three.
The UK Health Security Agency said there were 4,713 Omicron cases on Monday, up 1,576 in 24 hours
Vaccination rates are high in Britain, with more than 81 percent or 46.7 million of those aged 12 and over having had a second jab.Some 23 million or 40 percent have so far had a booster.
