In Germany, which is still under the radar, it is clear that the Omikron variant is already progressing in other European countries. Especially in the UK!
Britons reported 93,045 new infections on Friday – the highest value since the start of the pandemic. More than half of the cases are said to be due to the new variant.
This ensures not only an increase in the number of Covid patients in hospitals, but also huge numbers of sick leave and staff failure – also in critical areas such as hospitals, firefighters and rescue services.
Omikron will result in severe absenteeism due to illness. Even in core professional groups, “Professor Christian Drosste, virologist at Charité, working on expert advice from Chancellor Olaf Schultz (63, SPD), warns on Twitter. The virologist cites a report in the British newspaper “Watchman“.
At Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Trust (GSTT) Hospital in London – where British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, 57, was treated while seriously ill – 350 staff members have already been released from infection with the coronavirus. Within a day, the number of sick leave reports rose by a quarter.
“Omikron now has a major impact on our work,” the Guardian quoted from a note sent from GSTT.
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The clinic is preparing to take measures to “reduce risks for all services and preserve care for our patients”.
The result: all non-critical services and interventions were postponed or drastically reduced. GSTT has already announced “big bottlenecks”.
London fire brigades and emergency services have also reported an “unprecedented” shortage of staff, causing nearly a third of London’s fire engines to fail over the past week. More than ten percent of firefighters are injured or in quarantine.
In addition to Drosten, physicist and designer Dirk Brockmann is also concerned and warns about the risks of employee absenteeism, including within critical infrastructure: “If there are simultaneous, high-speed absences and large numbers of illness-related absenteeism, even if : “In these cases, operations are not difficult at best, and this carries the risk of cascading infrastructure failures.”
Politicians should put this issue on their radar.
According to his own statement, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (58, SPD) is in regular contact with his British counterpart Sajid Javid (52) and experts on the island.