We have a chance to ride out this Omicron wave without shutting down our country once again. We can keep our schools and our businesses open, and we can find a way to live with this virus. But the weeks ahead are going to be challenging, both here in the U.K. and across the world. there is no escaping the fact that some services will be disrupted by staff absences. We now know that Omicron is milder than previous variants. So while hospital admissions are rising quickly, with over 15,000 Covid patients now in hospital in England alone, this is not yet thankfully translating into the same numbers needing intensive care that we saw in previous waves.