The UK’s health secretary Sajid Javid said the country is seeing “the other side of the Omicron wave”.
The PA news agency asked Javid if there will be a dedicated urgent and emergency care recovery plan, as called for by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.
He replied: “There is a plan for urgent and emergency care. Just at the start of this winter, we published a 10-point plan with hundreds of millions of extra funding going into the NHS and social care to help with that winter pressure.
I think people could see especially over the last couple of months because of Omicron, which had rightly become the priority, that’s had additional pressure on the NHS.
“But it’s right now that we are seeing the other side of the Omicron wave, that things are improving, hospitalisations are falling, that the NHS is doing all that it can to deal with that Covid backlog.”
Novak Djokovic could be allowed to enter this year’s Italian Open despite the men’s world No 1 being unvaccinated, according to officials in Italy.
The country’s cabinet undersecretary for sports, Valentina Vezzali, said: “If Djokovic wants to come and play in Rome he can do it,” adding that tennis is “an outdoor sport and the tighter green pass is not required”.
“Perhaps Djokovic will most likely not be allowed in a hotel or a restaurant, but if he wants to play he can play,” said Vezzali, a former Olympic fencer and a 16-time world champion in foil.
