The UK is facing a surge in Covid-19 infections from the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus with a record number of Covid-19 cases (78,610) reported in the UK today. Cases of Covid-19 due to Omicron will soon account for most infections in the UK. Omicron has proved to be highly infectious – more so than other variants of SARS-CoV-2 – and is also able to evade vaccines better than other variants. To protect yourself, and reduce the risk of infection to you and others remember the three C approach to personal safety:<\/p>\n
– Avoid closed spaces<\/p>\n
– Avoid crowded spaces<\/p>\n
– Avoid getting too close to other people when outside your household<\/p>\n
These are simple and effective messages that need to be disseminated and adopted widely.<\/p>\n
Remember also to get vaccinated – including with a booster as well as your first two doses – and to wear a good quality FFP2 mask when in indoor spaces outside your home. Three doses of vaccines provide much better protection against symptomatic Covid-19 infection than one or two doses. Test regularly with lateral flow devices. These don’t pick up all infections but can help identify the people who may be most infectious.<\/p>\n
Finally, remember to improve ventilation whenever you are indoors, particularly with people from outside your household. The virus that causes Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) is airborne. Good ventilation can help\u00a0 disperse the virus and reduce the concentration in the air, thereby lowering the risk of infection.<\/p>\n
When vaccination, testing and ventilation are combined with wearing a higher quality face mask and adopting the 3C approach, you are reducing the risks of infection for you and the people close to you when you follow this guidance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The UK is facing a surge in Covid-19 infections from the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus with a record number of Covid-19 cases (78,610) reported in the UK today. Cases of Covid-19 due to Omicron will soon account for most infections in the UK. Omicron has proved to be highly infectious – more so than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[296231,404],"tags":[274465],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-health","tag-covid-19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/medical-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/medical-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/medical-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/medical-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/medical-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/medical-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":763,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/medical-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions\/763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/medical-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/medical-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/medical-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}