Sajid Javid, the health secretary, has said there is confirmed “community transmission” of the omicron variant across the UK.
The announcement means cases are being detected in people who have not travelled to southern Africa.
Mr Javid told MPs on Monday that “multiple regions of England” were seeing cases of the variant that were not linked to international travel.
It comes as more than 51,000 new Covid cases were recorded in the UK in the last 24 hours as official data showed another rise in omicron cases.
The latest figures revealed a further 51,459 lab-confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK, with 90 new omicron infections.
The official data also showed that there were a further 41 people who had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19. The figures tend to be lower on a Monday due to a lag in reporting data over the weekend.
