The timetable page on the Internet was temporarily unavailable due to excessive demand after Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday urged eligible adults, that is, those who received a second dose, to contact centers.
The result was a race through the centers with an expectation of several hours from this morning.
At St Thomas’s Hospital on the south bank of the River Thames in London, the line ran across Westminster Bridge to Parliament on the other bank.
The system is to open appointments for those under 30 on Wednesday with the goal of making the third dose available to anyone over 18 by the end of the month, which would mean administering about a million vaccines every day.
Health Minister Sajid Javid acknowledged in parliament today that routine medical procedures should be postponed to achieve the goal, but clarified that if “reinforcement is not a priority now, the health consequences will be more severe in the coming months.”
At least one person infected with the Omicron variant of covid-19 has died in the UK and 10 more have been hospitalized.
Javid told MPs that deaths start to rise about two weeks after infection, so “this number is expected to rise sharply in the coming days and weeks.”
It is currently estimated that Omicron’s variant accounts for 20% of cases in England and 44% in London, where it should become dominant in the next 48 hours.
David added that the actual daily number of cases is currently expected to be around 200,000, compared to an average of 52,000 over the past seven days.
The UK Health Safety Agency (UKHSA) said the number of confirmed Omicron cases in the UK increased 50% in 24 hours, with 1,576 cases identified since Sunday, for a total of 4,713.
The agency said the 10 hospitalized people infected with the Omicron variant in England were between the ages of 18 and 85, most of whom were vaccinated with two doses.
According to UKHSA estimates, if the number of infected with this variant continues to grow at its current rate, in the coming days it will become dominant, that is, responsible for more than 50% of all cases of COVID-19 infection in the UK.
The body estimates that this number is doubling every 2-3 days, so by the end of this month there could be more than a million infections per day in the UK by the end of this month.
The country’s pandemic warning rate has climbed to fourth level (on a five-point scale) because this option is “extremely contagious”.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitted that the country is facing an “emergency” due to an expected “flood” of infections that could cause “many deaths” if hospitals are overwhelmed with patients, given the rate of infection.
Preliminary data from the UKHSA showed that efficacy against the new variant appears to increase significantly after a booster dose of the vaccine, providing about 70% to 75% protection against symptomatic infections.
Last week, the government announced new restrictions in England, such as the widespread use of masks in closed public places, mandatory health passes to enter clubs or concert halls, and a recommendation to work remotely.
The rules in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are set by the respective autonomous governments that have already adopted these measures and advocate others, such as mandatory isolation of contacts of people infected with the Omicron variant.
The United Kingdom is the country with the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in Europe, 146,477 since the start of the pandemic, with 81.3% of the population vaccinated with two doses of the vaccine and 41% with a third dose.
