I have already written about the probable Omicron exposure I had last Thursday.. I will append a brief synopsis at the end. The good news I have tested negative on a couple of lateral flow tests and have had no noticeable symptoms. My contact was double vaccinated (just too early for the booster) and had cold/flu like symptoms for a couple of days. So the message as always is vaccinate, vaccinate and get boosted as soon as you can. It may not prevent infection but from our small sample, the vaccinated are well protected from serious infection.
In the UK, the Omicron variant is now predominant, focussed on London which has had lower vaccination rates than the rest of the country and high rates of infections in previous waves. Cases as a whole are still increasing however the rate of increase has slowed sharply since December 19 when it was almost 70%. By December 23 this was down to 46.4% although note that new case numbers are still rising about 40% week on week. This slowdown is perhaps an indicator of the spread of Omicron into areas better protected by vaccination. There has been a high demand on the NHS supplies of lateral flow tests. Before Christmas the only available were in local pharmacies. PCR capacity is close. Of particular concern is the effect if large numbers of healthcare and other essential workers having to self-isolate after exposure. This is ten days however from the 6th day you can stop if you have two negative lateral apart, effectively meaning that the period is reduced to a week for the uninfected.
John Campbell’s Tuesay video gives a wider overview.
John points out that those infected are infections from the day before symptoms occur for three or four days after. Despite both of us testing negative on PCR tests, my contact had symptoms about 15 hours after. Both tested negative on lateral flow tests and their infection was confirmed by the PCR test only. I have also tested negative with LFTs but I have arrangted a PCR test (home taken fingerprint blood sample)