VIRAL SPREAD
UK’s new daily Covid cases plummet by 40% in a week as deaths rise to 314
THE UK has seen a drop of 40 per cent in a week in new daily Covid today.
Another 66,183 infections have been logged in the past 24 hours, compared to 112,458 last Tuesday.
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Yesterday deaths were very low, with 45 reported - however figures are generally smaller after the weekend.
Today another 314 fatalities were added to the grim toll, but this number likely includes some unreported from Saturday and Sunday.
Cases have not dipped below 50,000 for weeks, as the country learns to live with the virus.
The NHS still lists a new persistent cough, a loss of taste and smell and a high temperature as the key signs of Covid.
But Omicron is presenting differently, and it's important if you think you have Covid from any known symptom - such as runny nose, sneezing, sore throat - you get a test and isolate for five days full days and take lateral flows to be released.
While Covid won't be a mild illness for everyone, most people who have had the variant say it's like a cold.
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A string of hugely positive studies show Omicron is milder than other strains in the vaccinated.
Today Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland is "through the worst" of the Omicron wave of coronavirus.
Ms Sturgeon said that the number of people in hospital with Covid was declining - with this dropping from more than 1,500 patients in mid January to 950.
"It seems reasonable based on the data to conclude that we are now through the worst of this wave of Omicron," she told MSPs.
It comes as the Health Secretary today revealed his plan for the NHS to bounce back after Covid.
Sajid Javid pledged to slash waiting times for treatment, in a package of measures designed to tackle the record backlog.
He said more than 300,000 people have been waiting for treatment for over a year.
This waiting list has spiralled from 1,600 people - a 190-fold rise compared to pre-pandemic times.
The Health Secretary declared the country now faces "a new mission to fight what the virus has brought with it".
OMICRON WATCH
It comes as a child's doctor warned Omicron could "act differently" in kids - with one key sign to watch out for.
The variant has been proven to be milder than other Covid strains, especially in the vaccinated.
But children are mostly unvaccinated, and Omicron's mutations could be hitting them harder, some experts think.
Dr Andrew Pavia, a paediatric infectious diseases specialist at Primary Children’s Hospital in Utah, said: "There is reason to think that Omicron acts differently in younger children.
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"We are seeing the shift towards more disease in younger children; that probably has to do with changes in the virus."
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He suggests the variant “attacks the [upper] airways more than the lungs, and younger children have smaller airways".
Most of the kids who have caught the virus and got ill enough to go to hospital, present with a specific cough.
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