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UK Health Secretary: rise in COVID-19 cases ‘expected’

pharmafile | March 14, 2022 | News story | Sales and Marketing  

A surge in COVID-19 cases was to be “expected”, following the ease of pandemic restrictions in England, insisted UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid.

Latest data from the Office for National Statistics COVID-19 Infections Survey has shown an increase in cases across the whole of the UK. In spite of hospital admissions rising, Health Secretary Sajid Javid has stated that the UK remains in a “very good position”, urging eligible adults to receive their booster vaccinations.

“Whilst the rate has gone up modestly in the last few days, that’s to be expected as we are now open as a country and there’s more social mixing, but there’s nothing in the data at this point in time that gives us any cause for concern,” Javid told Sky News.

Javid has also stated on BBC Breakfast that the “handful” of cases of the ‘Deltacron’ variant identified in the UK were “not of particular concern”, underlining that 99.9%  of infections remained the Omicron variant.

“We have seen some rises in infections over the last week but given the increase in social mixing this was to be expected,” the Health Secretary shared with Sky News. 

Government data highlights that cases have been rising since 2 March. This is only days after England’s ‘Freedom Day’ on 24 February, which saw the end of the legal requirement to self-isolate after testing positive. On 7 March, there were 1,459 COVID-19-caused hospital admissions across the UK, marking the eighth day in a row this number rose.

However, the Health Secretary insisted that officials were continuing to monitor case numbers, hospital admissions and NHS capacity. Javid told the Times Radio: “Taking all of that together, we remain in an overall very good position.”

“We’re the most open country in Europe and that’s happened because of the country’s approach and the British people’s approach to vaccination,” he elaborated. “But also the support that we have from all the different treatments that the NHS is now able to offer and on our testing offer where we focus very much on the most vulnerable.”

There were 72,898 cases of COVID-19 reported in the UK on Friday 11 March.

Ana Ovey

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