Sajid Javid has refused to rule out further Covid restrictions before Christmas.
The health secretary said there were “no guarantees in this pandemic” after government scientists warned tougher measures could be needed before the new year to prevent “considerable pressure” on the NHS as the Omicron variant continues to surge.
He added that it remained an “individual decision” whether people went ahead with attending Christmas parties.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he believed further restrictions were “inevitable” a day after declaring a “major incident” in the capital, which he said had seen almost 30,000 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours.
On Saturday, the government’s official dashboard recorded 90,418 cases of Covid in the UK in the last 24 hours, while 900 patients had been admitted to hospital.
Sage scientists warned the doubling time of Omicron infections in England was currently around two days – “faster than the growth rate seen in March 2020”.
