Cities across China are imposing tougher restrictions to try to control new outbreaks of COVID-19, with Tianjin now battling the highly contagious Omicron variant, which has already been detected in at least two other provinces.
in the uk, sirjeremy farrar, who runs the wellcome trust, the biomedical research charity. he s a former member of sage, he s been pretty vocal and critical of the government in the past and in fact, at one point threatened to resign from sage because the government wasn t acting fast enough, in his view. he s just been on the radio saying it is reasonable for ministers to wait 2a hours or 48 hours to look at the data, particularly the data on hospitalisation rates in london, which has become the omicron epicentre. so i think ministers will be relieved that something last night or this morning that might have looked like indecision is now getting the thumbs up from a scientist and that actually not doing something was a decision rather than indecision. a former member of the government s scientific but sirjeremy farrar said new controls might be needed before christmas if alarming new data emerged. if transmission continues to rise, it is now one in 50, one in 60 people infected
tomorrow too. the government decision to not make a decision has received the backing this morning of one of the top scientists in the uk, the person who runs the biomedical research charity the wellcome trust, a former member of sage who has been vocal and critical of the government in the past, threatening to resign from sage because he did not think that government was acting fast enough but he has been on the radio saying it is reasonable for the government to wait 2a or 48 hours saying it is reasonable for the government to wait 24 or 48 hours to wait for the data, particularly on hospitalisation rates in london which has become the omicron epicentre. so i think ministers will be relieved that something that might have looked like indecision yesterday is now getting the thumbs up yesterday is now getting the thumbs up from a scientist and not giving anything was a decision, rather than indecision. ., ~ , ., anything was a decision, rather than indecision. ., ~ , ., . ., indecisio
but the government s decision to not make a decision has received the backing this morning of one of the top scientists in the uk, sirjeremy farrar, who runs the wellcome trust, the biomedical research charity. he s a former member of sage, he s been pretty vocal and critical of the government in the past and in fact, at one point threatened to resign from sage because the government wasn t acting fast enough, in his view. he s just been on the radio saying it is reasonable for ministers to wait 24 hours or 48 hours to look at the data, particularly the data on hospitalisation rates in london, which has become the omicron epicentre. so i think ministers will be relieved that something last night or this morning that might have looked like indecision is now getting the thumbs up from a scientist and that actually not doing something was a decision rather than indecision. as adam mentioned, we re due to hear from the chancellor rishi sunak this afternoon on financial support for business
the next few weeks. hospital numbers are really important because they are really important because they are real data in a sense that they reflect what is really going on, daily cases can be affected by testing differences and so on. what i m told by government sources is that the london hospital numbers are being watched really closely because thatis being watched really closely because that is seen as the omicron epicentre and what happens in london could be replicated further afield around the uk. there are 1800 patients in london hospitals were covid, up nearly 500 on the week but other than that, there isn t much more new data. ministers will be considering a range of economic factors before deciding on possible restrictions. they will look at the idea that if they suppress the peak, it will just push idea that if they suppress the peak, it willjust push the problem a little bit further out. they will be looking at levels of immunity, boosted by the roll out ofjabs but when all i