Now Dominic Raab claims 250 Britons have been hospitalised with Omicron
So is it 250, 10 or 9, Dominic? Raab claims total number of Britons hospitalised with Omicron is 25 TIMES higher than true toll before back-tracking amid transparency row over variant data
Dominic Raab mistakenly claimed 250 people were in hospitalised with OmicronHe later said nine people were in hospital with the more transmissible strainThe UKHSA said 10 people were hospitalised by yesterday and 250 is ‘incorrect’
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A transparency row over No10’s handling of crucial Omicron data deepened today as Dominic Raab claimed 250 Britons infected with the variant were hospitalised — before correcting the figure to just nine.
The Government was heavily criticised yesterday for announcing the first Omicron death without revealing the person’s age, condition, vaccination status or whether Covid was even the primary reason.
Asked how many people were hospitalised with the super strain during a round of interviews this morning, the Justice Secretary Mr Raab told Sky News the figure was ‘in the low hundreds, I think 250 the last time I looked’.
But 15 minutes later, in a separate interview with BBC Breakfast, Mr Raab said: ‘I think we’ve got nine people who are in hospital with it.’
He corrected the figure on the third attempt, clarifying there are ’10 in hospital’ with Omicron.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) told MailOnline 10 Omicron-infected people had been admitted to hospital as of yesterday, saying 250 was ‘incorrect’.
But officials have still refused to offer any more details about any of the hospitalised patients, only saying all were aged between 18-85 and the ‘majority had received two doses’ of a vaccine.
Doctors last night warned the Government was causing ‘unnecessary alarm’ with its Omicron statistics.
The fallout follows even more chaotic messaging by the Health Secretary Sajid Javid last night.
Addressing MPs about the threat Omicron poses yesterday, Mr Javid told MPs up to 200,000 Britons were getting infected with Covid every day. His comments sparked immediate confusion as to whether he meant the figure was solely for the variant or the virus overall.
Department of Health sources later told The Telegraph it was just for Omicron — but experts have questioned the source of the figure and officials have yet to respond to MailOnline and clarify the situation.
Asked how many people were hospitalised with the super strain, the Justice Minister told Sky News the figure was ‘in the low hundreds, I think 250 the last time I looked’. But 15 minutes on BBC Breakfast, Mr Raab said ‘I think we’ve got nine people who are in hospital with it’
The UK Covid alert level was raised from level 3 to level 4 after the UK reported another 1,239 confirmed cases of the Omicron variant
Discussing Omicron hospitalisations on Sky News this morning, Mr Raab said: ‘The last I saw was in the low hundreds, I think 250 the last time I looked.
‘But of course the data is being updated all the time.’
He added: ‘The problem is the rate at which it is transmitting and if that continues we will see those numbers increase very dramatically.
‘Then we know a proportion of those hospitalised will possibly die or have a very serious suffering of the omicron variant.’
Appearing on BBC Breakfast, the Justice Secretary said: ‘I know we’ve had one death. I think we’ve got nine people who are in hospital with it or still at a relatively low number and we’re tracking that very carefully, but the data is shifting all the time.’
But a spokesperson for the UKHSA said 10 people had been admitted to hospital with the Omicron variant as of yesterday.
They added: ‘This is people who were diagnosed with Omicron before or upon being admitted to hospital. The 250 figure is an incorrect one.’
And a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said they ‘don’t know where’ the number came from.
Latest UKHSA data shows 54,661 daily Covid infections were recorded yesterday, while 1,576 Omicron cases were confirmed, bringing the UK total to 4,713.
In a third interview this morning, Mr Raab clarified there were 10 Omicron hospitalisations when he was quizzed over the confusion on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
After being interrupted, he said: ‘Can I answer the question? I understand you like ranting at your politicians in the morning but can I answer the question because it’s a fair challenge and I want to answer it.
‘First of all, I misheard one of the questions around whether it was hospitalisations of Omicron-related patients or more generally, but the figures are: one death from Omicron, 10 in hospital, and I can tell you the latest daily hospitalisations (for all Covid strains) run at 900.’
The vast majority of Omicron infections have been confirmed in England (4,487), followed by Scotland (186), Wales (30) and Northern Ireland (10).
It comes after medics hit out at the lack of information shared around the UK’s first Omicron death.
Boris Johnson revealed the UK’s first death due to Omicron on a visit to a vaccination clinic in Paddington, west London.
He said: ‘Sadly yes Omicron is producing hospitalisations and sadly at least one patient has been confirmed to have died with Omicron.’
Mr Johnson did not reveal the age of the person who died, or if they had underlying health conditions, which made them vulnerable, or whether Omicron was the leading cause of their death or a secondary factor.
The death in the UK is thought to be the first confirmed Omicron fatality in the world.
However, given the variant makes up almost every case in South Africa it is likely that the vast majority of fatalities there are due to the mutant strain but a lack of testing means these are not picked up.
Pictured above is the current pace of the booster programme (green bars) and how it will have to ramp up to hit the million jabs a day target (red bars). NHS bosses warn scaling up the programme will be ‘incredibly difficult’
Professor of medicine and consultant oncologist Karol Sikora said the Government should release more details about the death to put people’s minds at ease.
‘Have they had booster? Are they elderly?,’ he said.
‘There are all sorts of nuances to this thing, and we’re not being given proper information.’
He added that given the average age of Covid fatalities in the UK, and that the individual may have died while being infected with Omicron, as opposed to because of the variant, there was no reason to panic and the Government should calm fears rather than stoke them.
‘The average age of death of Covid is 82.5 so a lot of 82-year-old people die in a year, at any one time,’ he said.
‘No details have been released, I suspect it’s just some old boy that’s tested positive, he may have died in his sleep or with a heart attack, who knows?
‘It is unnecessarily alarming.’
Professor Sikora said his suspicion is that the silence regarding whether the person was vaccinated or not indicated to him that the person died of another cause while they had Omicron.
‘I suspect that it’s a death, which is unfortunate, but is due to something else, and it just happens to be Covid positive that’s why they’re not making a big noise about them being vaccinated or not,’ he said.
