Of the wake of an increase in Covid cases, a leading scientist has advised that “anybody who has a cold” should stay at home and isolate themselves.
Sir Frank Atherton, the chief medical officer for Wales, has advised anyone suffering from the common illness to remain indoors in order to help prevent the spread of the infection.
When someone has symptoms like a runny nose or is sneezing, would it make sense for them to leave the house?
This comes as the UK Health Security Agency warns that reducing Covid isolation time to five days would be “counterproductive” and potentially worsen the country’s personnel deficit.
People who receive negative lateral flow readings on day six and day seven of their self-isolation period, with tests conducted 24 hours apart, are no longer required to remain indoors for the whole ten days as they were previously required to.
There have been requests for this period to be reduced even further, to five days.
While talking to Times Radio Sir Frank Atherton said: “I would say anybody who has a cold, or symptoms of a cold – a runny nose, a cough, sneezing, is it really appropriate for you to go on a train or a plane or a bus?
“You know, stay home, get better.”
Meanwhile, as the coronavirus continues to spread across the country, public sector officials are being urged to prepare for the worst-case scenario of up to a quarter of their employees being absent from work.
The Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom stated on Saturday that, so far, the disruption caused by Omicron has been contained in “the most parts of the public sector.”
However, according to the report, executives were required to evaluate plans against absence rates of 10%, 20%, and 25% of the workforce, respectively.
According to data released by NHS England on Friday, Covid admissions increased by 2,370 in England on December 29, marking the largest increase since January 29.
It brings the total number of people in Britain to 12,000.
In just one week, the number of hospital employees who were missing due to the virus increased by 31%. On Boxing Day, a total of 24,632 employees were on leave, compared to 18,829 employees a week earlier in the year.
Professor Stephen Reicher, a sage expert, warned the Mirror that we are about to confront a “serious crisis in January” as a result of the holiday celebrations taking place.
Additionally, according to the most recent numbers, over 1.1 million individuals had a confirmed positive Covid test result between December 27 and January 2, representing a 43 percent rise over the previous week.
On New Year’s Day, a record-breaking 162,572 new cases were reported in England. Another 137,583 cases of the disease were reported on Sunday.
For the first time in the pandemic’s history, the United States is seeing more than 300,000 new cases each day on average. The number of hospitalizations is increasing at a significantly slower rate than the number of cases.
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