Is this the beginning of the end?

Is this the beginning of the end?

Christmas holidays in Great Britain were again marked by a sharp increase in the number of people infected with coronavirus. The situation is similar in other countries across Europe, Blic reported the writing of that Croatian portal.

New Year's Eve celebrations are being canceled in many British restaurants, pubs and nightclubs, and the country is on the verge of another gloomy New Year. The British Health System (NHS) has again warned of a possible overload of hospitals due to the growing number of seriously ill patients, although experts believe that the probability of such a scenario is low.

However, the mere mention of an extreme scenario raises fears that harsh measures could shape the holidays in Europe and in the years ahead.

At first glance, the similarity of this year's increase in the number of infected with the situation from last winter is "stunning" - in just a few weeks, the number of people infected with coronavirus has risen sharply. However, this year's number of hospitalizations and deaths is currently very low, and the latest research suggests that omicron causes far fewer serious diseases compared to previous strains.

Although the authors of the study believe that this is good news, they called for caution. The number of newly infected people continues to grow on a daily basis - there were a record 122.000 cases in Britain on Friday, and it was estimated that there were 1.7 million active cases in the country last week.

The key thing is that the newly infected are mostly younger people, which is why some scientists have warned that the number of hospitalizations could jump if the older population starts getting infected with omicron. On the other hand, a large number of people, especially the elderly, were vaccinated with two doses and some with a booster, which gave them significant protection against the new strain.

It is not yet known how these different factors will affect the numbers. The data is still being analyzed and it is too early for any final conclusion.

"We have an inevitable lag from the moment of infection to hospitalization. In the meantime, political decisions have to be made, and that is not easy," said epidemiologist Mark Woolhouse of the University of Edinburgh. Many scientists believe that the evidence confirms that the coronavirus will finally lose its power to cause more serious diseases, and recent research in Scotland, England and South Africa, where omicron originated, also contributes to this attitude.

"I have a feeling that this variant is the first step in the process in which the virus adapts to the human population to cause more benign symptoms. In a sense, it is an advantage of the virus if it affects people so that they do not get too sick. They hang out with others and spread the virus even more", said Dr Julian Tang, Professor of Respiratory Sciences at the University of Leicester.