Britain's Covid crisis continued to surge today with cases and deaths both increasing on last week, Government data showed as Boris Johnson warned the Omicron variant is more transmissible.
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) figures showed there were 45,691 new positive tests over the last 24 hours, up 15 per cent on last Tuesday's figure of 39,716.
It was the seventh time daily infections increased in a week, with top epidemiologist Professor Tim Spector, from King's College London, claiming cases of the supermutant variant are doubling every two days.
And deaths also increased today, jumping 13.2 per cent to 180 today, the highest daily figure seen since November 17 (201).
But the number of people being admitted to hospital with the virus remained flat on Friday, the latest date data is available for. Hospitalisations fell by 0.7 per cent in a week to 713.
The figures come after Mr Johnson told ministers at a morning meeting it was is early to tell if the super-mutant strain was indeed worse but 'early indications' pointed in that direction.
Ministers did not debate resorting to No10's Plan B strategy of working from home and vaccine passports, despite grim warnings about the threat of facing Britain in the coming weeks.
Recounting the weekly Downing Street meeting however, the PM's official spokesman did insist the Government would act 'swiftly' if needed, once again dangling the possibility of another festive lockdown if Omicron continues to spiral.
The variant is now spreading domestically in multiple regions, with the official count today seeing its biggest raw jump today to 437. Separate data shows the strain is thought to make up one in 60 of all cases, with infections in the home nations starting to tick upwards.
But real-world data suggests the variant may be milder than other strains. None of the recorded cases in the UK – which are just a fraction of the true toll – have been hospitalised, Health Secretary Sajid Javid revealed last night, mirroring reports from doctors in the ground zero of the outbreak in South Africa.
Eminent epidemiologist Professor Tim Spector claimed infections of the highly evolved variant were doubling every two days. The above graph shows how the number of daily cases of Omicron could breach the 100,000 barrier before New Year's Day, if that pace continues
On another day of coronavirus chaos:
Mr Johnson insisted that Britain's turbocharged Covid booster campaign is going faster than planned, despite official data showing the country is still nowhere near meeting its 500,000-a-day target; It was revealed none of the 100-plus partygoers who caught Omicron at a Norwegian Christmas party believed to be the world's biggest coronavirus super-spreader event have fallen seriously unwell; A study suggested wearing a face mask — regardless of how flimsy or tight-fitting it is — is better than social distancing at preventing you from catching Covid; Nicola Sturgeon ramped up work from home orders for Scots — demanding businesses make sure people stay away from offices; Scientists warned some side effects of the Covid jab are almost indistinguishable from early symptoms of the virus itself; A damning Ofsted report revealed nearly every child in England has fallen behind in their education and suffered as a result of the Covid lockdown; A man killed himself, his wife and three young girls after he faked a Covid jab certificate and feared his children would be taken away when it was discovered.Today's death toll took the UK's total amount of people who died within 28 days of catching the virus up to 145,826.
Separate figures looking at whether Covid was mentioned on the death certificate suggest the true number of fatalities now stands at 170,001.
The UKHSA figures also show Britain dished out 329,165 boosters today, taking the total number of adults receiving a third dose up to 20.9million (36.4 per cent).
At the current rate of around 380,000 boosters a day, all eligible adults will not be boosted until February 10.
Meanwhile, Dr Jeffrey Barrett, head of Covid surveillance at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said Omicron was likely to become the UK dominant strain 'within a matter of weeks' rather than months like initially hoped.
Scientists predicted just yesterday that it would take until mid-January for Omicron to outpace Delta.
Echoing No10's official stance before Cabinet met, Dominic Raab claimed ministers were not looking to bring in tougher Christmas curbs, despite the sharp uptick in Omicron. 'We don't think Plan B is required,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 'Why? Because of the success of the vaccine programme.'
Updating his Cabinet on the latest situation this morning, the Prime Minister admitted it was too early to tell if the super-mutant strain was indeed worse but 'early indications' pointed in that direction
In total, there are 46,000 Covid cases on average each day in the UK and data from the Covid Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK) suggests the new strain is already behind around one in 66 of them, or 1.4 per cent
This is the image that has sparked fear among scientists, prompted ministers to turbocharge the UK's booster vaccine rollout and seen the return of mask mandates in England. It details the new super-mutant Omicron variant's spike protein mutations which experts fear will make it the most infectious and vaccine-resistant strain yet. The graphic, released by the country's top variant monitoring team, also lays bare how it is far more evolved than even the world-dominant Delta strain, with nearly five times as many alterations on the spike
Scientists expect booster jabs to give high protection against severe illness and death from Omicron, even if the variant makes vaccines much less effective at preventing infection.
No10 announced last week that it plans to ramp up the booster programme to 500,000 jabs per day and offer a third dose to all 53million British adults by the end of January to shield against the incoming wave.
But the scheme already appears to be stalling with just 290,000 delivered across Britain. And, on average, just 378,000 are being administered each day.
Mr Johnson later said now is the time' for people to get a booster jab.
'The booster programme is the fastest in Europe; I think we have done more boosters than any comparable country,' he told reporters. 'That doesn't mean it couldn't go faster.'
He added: 'I would certainly say to people that now is the time to get it and, of course, from Monday, we will be contracting the interval so you go down to three months and that will lead to a big uptick in the programme as well.'
Scientists fear that Omicron will be able to trigger a wave of hospital admissions on par with the peak in January 2021, even if reports that it is milder than Delta coming out of South Africa are true.
The virus appears to be able to infect former Covid patients with ease and UK Government experts expect it to make existing vaccines up to 40 per cent weaker at stopping an infection.
Experts have warned that if Omicron can infect far more people then it could cause a larger surge in admissions, even if only a small percentage need to be hospitalised.
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