Early indications show that the omicron variant is more transmissible than delta, Boris Johnson has said.
Giving an account of the meeting on Tuesday morning, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: “The Prime Minister said it was too early to draw conclusions on the characteristics of omicron but early indications were that it is more transmissible than delta.”
It comes as Professor Tim Spector, of the covid Zoe app warned that omicron cases are doubling every two days putting it on course to overtake countries on the UK’s red list.
He said: “The official estimates are about 350-odd omicron cases, and because the current testing is missing a lot of those, it’s probably at least 1,000 to 2,000 I would guess at the moment.
“And we are expecting this to be doubling about every two days at the moment, so if you do your maths - assume it’s 1,000 at the moment, and you think it’s going to be doubling every two days, you can see that those numbers are going to be pretty (high) certainly in about 10 days’ time.
“By that time, we’ll probably have more cases than they will in some of those African countries.”
