UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to examine crucial hospital data on Monday before making any new announcement on Covid measures. Besides he has no plans to recall his cabinet, with ministers still deeply skeptical of further legal curbs.
- Other sources said the prime minister would “take stock” after being encouraged by improving data on Friday. A sign that No 10 is leaning away from stricter curbs in England, but Downing Street sources said he would act quickly if there were new causes for concern.
- Instead, Johnson will receive only his regular data briefing over the bank holiday with England’s chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty. It is expected to be knighted in the new year honors and the chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance.
- Meanwhile, US regional health authorities reacted with alarm to a jump in child Covid infections that caused some school districts to announce returns to remote learning. They’re a leading public health official questioned the need for schools to close, saying: “We know how to keep schools open, we know how to keep them safe.”
- Over the past three weeks, Omicron-related cases surged in New York City and elsewhere. The number of children hospitalized in New York with Covid-19 quadrupled, the state health department said. The California state epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pan wrote on Twitter:
“Unfortunately New York is seeing an increase in pediatric hospitalizations (primarily amongst the unvaccinated), and they have similar [five – to 11-year-old] vaccination rates.”
- In China’s Xi’an lockdown restrictions have been tightened up. The City is battling the largest community outbreak the country has seen since the initial months of the pandemic when China brought thousands of daily infections under control.
Authorities reported 162 new community infections on Monday, up from 158 on Sunday. All but 10 of Monday’s new cases were reported in Shaanxi province, where 13 million residents of the capital Xi’an have been locked down for five days.