omicron
Should we worry about the BA.2 Omicron variant?
When the Omicron variant (now categorised as BA.1) swept across the world at the end of last year it was…
On Sage’s Covid models
In the confusion that has arisen from the demonstrable inability of a certain type of mathematical model to predict the…
Why Denmark has called for the end of Covid restrictions
England has been described by some as an outlier in that the government is lifting Plan B restrictions in spite…
Why Sage got Omicron wrong
Given that lockdown was very nearly ordered on the advice of Sage last month, it’s worth keeping an eye on…
Omicron is on its way out
Omicron peaked in England in early January, according to figures just released by the ONS. The estimates from the weekly…
Boris Johnson rejects lockdown (again)
Boris Johnson latest Covid press conference was slightly confusing. The Prime Minister spent nearly an hour saying nothing particularly new.…
Does Warwick’s Omicron modelling make restrictions more likely?
Two weeks ago, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Imperial College both published modelling showing frightening…
Sage modellers start to accept that Omicron is milder
Public health officials in Britain and South Africa were on different planets for about a fortnight. While those in South Africa…
Sage memo makes the case for lockdown
On Monday, Covid restrictions were rejected after the cabinet debated the issue robustly for the first time since the pandemic…
It’s time to end the era of forced lockdown restrictions
Monday’s Cabinet meeting held over Zoom was a fraught affair by the sounds of it. Michael Gove and Sajid Javid…
Is Omicron now falling in South Africa?
Man makes Covid predictionsand God laughs. Yet with the stakes this high in Britain, every bit of real-world data is…
Five lockdown questions the cabinet must ask
The cabinet will meet this afternoon, with more restrictions and even a new lockdown on the agenda. But have ministers…
Don’t underestimate the Omicron variant
As the Omicron variant makes its way through the population of the UK, the Chief Medical Officer’s warning that we…
Pubs and restaurants are being decimated by Covid uncertainty
The run up to Christmas is normally a merry time for the hospitality industry. Our nation’s restaurants, pubs and bars…
Omicron is now Britain’s dominant Covid strain
If you test positive for Covid now in Britain, the odds are that it’s Omicron: it’s now the dominant strain…
Macron’s British travel ban is entirely political
Emmanuel Macron subjected France to a two-hour primetime television interview on Wednesday evening which must have been a pre-Christmas treat…
Why Omicron may overwhelm our health service
What we know from the imperfect data we have is that Omicron is vastly more infectious but less virulent than…
The ethics of the Omicron travel ban
The Omicron variant had not even been named when the government’s reflexes sprung into almost involuntary reaction last month, and…
Vaccine passports may prove a pointless distraction from Omicron
Sajid Javid ditched vaccine passports when he became Health Secretary but he now has to bring them in again, albeit…
Should we be scared of the Omicron variant?
Why is the government so scared of the Omicron variant? So far, most of the evidence we have for transmissibility…
Omicron: cause for hope?
It will be weeks before we know just how worried we should be about Omicron — but the first indications seem…
Unless Omicron changes everything, Covid is on the way out
There are good reasons to be concerned about the Omicron variant. For starters, this strain has 50 mutations, twice as…
Boris's booster bet
Boris Johnson is relying heavily on the booster programme to protect Britain from any additional threat posed by the Omicron…
Is Boris right to fear the Omicron variant?
Boris Johnson announced a new raft of coronavirus measures on Saturday, after two cases of the Omicron variant were detected…
