Covid Now Less Deadly than the Flu in UK at Least By Richard Miller (London)

This is significant; the UK government is now taking the line that Covid is now less deadly than the flu, due to the low mortality of Covid Omicron, killing merely one in every 3,300 people who get infected, having about the same mortality of the seasonal flu, which is between 0.01 and 0.05 percent. The thing is, Covid has always been about as deadly as a bad flu, and there was little reason for the over-the-top lockdowns. Sweden did fine without engaging in this freak-out. As we know, the reasons have never been epidemiological, but in terms of political control.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10598195/Covid-deadly-flu-scientists-say.html

“Covid is now less deadly than the flu in England thanks to Omicron's milder nature and sky-high immunity rates, MailOnline analysis suggests.

Government figures indicate the virus had a mortality rate of around 0.2 per cent before the ultra-transmissible strain erupted onto the scene. But this has since plunged seven-fold to as little as 0.03 per cent, meaning it kills effectively just one in every 3,300 people who get infected.

For comparison, seasonal influenza's infection-fatality rate (IFR) sits between 0.01 and 0.05 per cent, suggesting that the two viruses now pose a similar threat.

Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious diseases expert from the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline it meant that Covid could actually be even less deadly than the flu. Although, he warned another variant could reverse the progress. 

Infections have been on the rise in the UK for a week straight, with the country now averaging 50,000 cases per day compared to around 35,000 on Freedom Day in late February. Hospitalisations have also been rising and in the South West of England have now eclipsed levels at the height of the Omicron wave. 

Ministers are understood to not yet be concerned by the spike, given that two-thirds of over-12s have already had their booster vaccine. Fourth jabs are set to be rolled out to over-75s, care home residents and people with weakened immune systems — who are most vulnerable to the virus — later this month.

Professor Robert Dingwall, a former SAGE adviser and sociologist at Nottingham Trent University, said the UK was now seeing a 'transition' to a world where Covid was just one more respiratory disease. 

Even though NHS Covid admissions shot up to around 2,500 per day at the height of the wave, a large proportion were 'incidental' cases. Intensive care rates barely budged and fatalities stayed way below levels seen during bad flu winters. 

Scientists have credited the build-up of immunity after repeated waves of the virus, the vaccine rollout and the fact Omicron is inherently milder than older forms of the virus.

England has been somewhat of a European outlier since the Covid vaccines first started to be rolled out. 

It dropped most restrictions last summer despite high levels of Delta circulating and stayed open during the Omicron wave when many in the EU reimposed draconian lockdowns. 

While at times it has meant England has had consistently high infection rates, scientists believe the strategy has given the country an unusually high level of immunity.

A rapid and successful booster rollout combined with the mild Omicron wave helped severe the link between infection and severe illness even more.

These factors have given ministers the confidence to ease all restrictions in England, taking the country out of economically-crippling restriction cycles and moving into a new phase of 'living with Covid'.

MailOnline compared estimates on the number of people catching Covid every day in England against deaths registered two weeks later — roughly how long it takes for patients to succumb to the illness.

Infection figures were taken from the Office for National Statistics' gold-standard infection survey, which randomly swabs tens of thousands of people every week to gauge how prevalent the virus is across the UK. 

Fatality figures were also taken from the ONS's weekly death analysis, that looks at the number of death certificates in which the virus was mentioned. 

Out of the 52,000 estimated new infections a day in early September, when the Delta variant was still dominant, an average of 110 deaths involving the virus were being registered a fortnight later. 

This equated to an infection-fatality ratio of around 0.2 per cent, or one in 500 infections resulting in a death. 

But by the height of the Omicron wave, this had plunged three-fold with roughly 120 out of 190,000 daily cases dying two weeks later (0.06 per cent) — or one in 1,500 infections. 

The most up-to-date IFR in the analysis — based on an estimated 245,000 people getting infected every day on and 83 deaths a fortnight later — stands at just 0.03 per cent. 

For comparison, the IFR was thought to be above one per cent at the start of the pandemic when the novel virus first hit the human population and there was no immunity. 

Professor Hunter told MailOnline: 'The recent data suggests Covid is now less deadly than flu, but there remains uncertainty about the impact of future variants.

'This is mainly down to immunity, though Omicron (possibly excluding BA.2) is also less virulent.'

Professor Dingwall said it was now 'widely accepted' that Covid had an IFR 'close' to that of flu, although also warned this could be changed by a new variant. 

He said: 'What we are seeing now is consistent with the transition to a world where Covid is just one more respiratory illness, circulating alongside the 30 or so other respiratory viruses that commonly infect humans and not presenting any exceptional risk.

'Like all the other viruses, there is some risk of serious illness or death but we have tolerated this risk for thousands of years because eliminating it would compromise all sorts of other things that we value about our lives.

'There is no justification today for any measures that we would not have adopted in November 2019 ahead of the flu season.'

When asked about a similar analysis done by the Financial Times, Dr Raghib Ali, an epidemiologist at Cambridge University, said: 'Is Omicron the same as flu? No. But the vaccines have made the risks to the individual very similar.'”