Rushing to remove Covid restrictions puts our beloved, fantastic but fragile and failing NHS on the line
The game is changing now. When I last wrote, Omicron had just been identified and was becoming the dominant variant. Cases were shooting up and I and my colleagues were preparing for another Covid wave like those we had seen with Alpha, then Delta. Why would we not?
The data at the time showed Omicron was fiercely infectious and case numbers were rocketing. It seemed only logical, based on my experience of the past two years, that this was going to be followed by rising hospital admissions, critical illness, death. It felt like a foolish roll of the dice not to be taking it more seriously. And – whatever may be said – those in charge did not know differently in early December.
The writer is an NHS respiratory consultant who works across a number of hospitals.
