Omicron "will soon become dominant strain" in Wiltshire
The first cases have been confirmed in the county
Omicron will become the dominant strain of Covid soon, according to Wiltshire's public health boss.
On Friday (December 10th), the first two cases of the Omicron variant were recorded in Wiltshire. They and their close contacts have been told to self-isolate.
However, Kate Blackburn has said that it is likely there will be more cases in Wiltshire than is confirmed:
"What we've seen from the evidence that's developing everyday about the new Omicron variant is that two doses of your vaccination doesn't give you the high coverage and protection from this variant that we were seeing from the delta variant. But what we see once people have had the booster is that increases significantly. Having that booster jab really does give you a good high protection against symptomatic disease, so it is really important.
"Omicron is spreading very, very quickly, so the cases are doubling every two to three days. So that means we will have a very large proportion of individuals who potentially are at risk of symptomatic illness from this variant and with that being such a large proportion of the population, the pressure then on the health and care service for people who may need support will be significant."
The public health boss said the new variant is expected to become dominant in the coming days, but for Wiltshire she could not confirm when this might be.
COVID CASE RATES
Wiltshire’s seven-day case rate (as of December 13) is 520.8 whereas the national average is 510.4.
This means Wiltshire cases per 100,000 continue to be above the England average.
In the same period, 2,625 new cases of the virus have been recorded; compared with 2,581 in the previous week.
Since the release of last week’s figures six more people have died as a result of Covid-19 in the county, bringing the total number of those who have died to 929.