Don't believe the claims from South Africa that Omicron is less dangerous than other variants, England's Chief Medical Officer has warned.
Professor Chris Whitty told a press briefing on Wednesday that the Omicron strain of Covid is "an incredibly transmissible virus".
Stood at the podium next to Boris Johnson, he said: "I'm afraid we have to be realistic that records will be broken a lot over the next few weeks as the rates continue to go up."
He took it upon himself to make it clear that people should be very cautious about figures coming out of South Africa suggesting Omicron is leading to fewer people ending up in hospital.
Prof Whitty said: "The first caution on this is simply a numerical one - if the rate of hospitalisation were to halve but you're doubling every two days, in two days you're back to where you were before you actually had the hospitalisation.
"If the peak of this is twice as great, then halving of the size of the hospitalisation rate, you still end up in the same place. And this peak is going very fast."
He added: "The second point I wanted to make, which I'm not sure it's fully been absorbed by everybody, is that the amount of immunity in South Africa for this wave - because of a prior Delta wave and vaccination - is far higher than it was for their last wave. And therefore the fact that there is a lower hospitalisation rate is unsurprising."
He continued: "That doesn't mean that there isn't some degree of slightly milder disease, that is possible. But I just think there's a danger people have over-interpreted this to say, this is not a problem and what are we worrying about?
"I want to be clear, I'm afraid this is going to be a problem. Exact proportions of it, of course, South African scientists and UK scientists and scientists globally are trying to determine at the moment."
The number of Omicron cases in Wales has almost doubled in the last 24 hours. You can read more on that here.
His warning, delivered with his customary gravitas, was a stark contrast to Mr Johnson, who dodged one of the first questions on why, if the numbers are so bad, he's not introducing more restrictions.
The PM repeatedly stressed how important the boosters are while Professor Whitty repeatedly suggested we should "prioritise" our Christmas socialising. The strongest message from the briefing was to "prioritise the social interactions that really matter" as we approach Christmas.
Setting out the situation, Professor Whitty said the country is dealing with two epidemics on top of one another - "an existing Delta epidemic, roughly flat, and a very rapidly-growing Omicron epidemic on top of it".
He showed a slide demonstrating the difference between the numbers of people who were admitted to hospital with coronavirus by vaccination status, which clearly illustrated how the vaccines provided "massive amounts of protection against Delta".
He warned: "What we're expecting to happen with Omicron is that some of that difference is going to be eroded, because it is less well ... the vaccines are less well matched to the Omicron variant." He added the caveat: "This is what the laboratory data are implying, we don't have clear clinical data yet."
The urgency with getting the booster jabs rolled out is to "try and get people back to as good as a position in terms of replicating this really good protection after they've had their booster dose", he explained.
It is impossible to argue that vaccines do not work, Prof Whitty said, adding: "I really do think if people look at these data, they cannot really argue, except that vaccines are remarkable at working. But people do still go into hospital even when they're double vaccinated and they will still go into hospital even after boosters, but their risks are much reduced."
To get the latest news from WalesOnline sent to your email inbox click here.
