"With the Government’s Chief Medical Officer making optimistic noises about the peak of the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus, Boris Johnson’s decision for England to move to plan B looks like it could be vindicated.

The daily number of new cases while high is levelling off and with the vast majority of hospitalizations being those who have not been vaccinated, the country may be on the cusp of seeing the light at the end of a very long tunnel.

Data showing the performance of the economy in December and January is expected to show only a mild hit from the virus. The call to encourage people to work from home is possible and to go back to wearing masks seems to have been sufficient to slow the pace of infection.

The biggest risk over the next month or so will be the risk of the NHS becoming overwhelmed as it is hit by relatively high numbers of hospitalizations coupled with high levels of staff absences.

The effect of Omicron on GDP is expected to be around one month, that is to say that by early spring, the country’s level of growth will be what it would have been without the variant having emerged.

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