Health experts have predicted a major wave of coronavirus will hit the UK next month if further restrictions are not implemented.
The Government has introduced a raft of new measures in an attempt to curb the spread of the Omicron variant of the virus, including introducing daily testing for everyone who has come into contact with a positive case.
However the Department of Health suggests these restrictions are not enough to avoid a large wave.
READ MORE: Expert reveals four main Omicron symptoms showing in double and triple vaccinated
The Department of Health paper, circulated to ministers ahead of Thursday's meeting of the Executive, stated: "It is likely that a peak in case numbers will occur in the middle third of January, with hospital admissions and occupancy peaking in late January/early February.
"The extent of the hospital peak will depend on the severity of Omicron illness, but without further measures is likely to exceed numbers observed earlier in the epidemic, potentially several fold."
The news comes after London NHS executives predicted the wave could peak by January 13.
But there is still much uncertainty and the top of the spike could be seen a week earlier, the New Statesman reports.
A total of 15 people are currently in hospital with the variant, but the real number is thought to be much higher, health officials have said.
Dr Susan Hopkins, of the UK Health Security Agency, confirmed the number, with England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty adding: “But the real number will be much bigger than that. That is simply the number who are proven, just to be clear.”
Prof Whitty also warned the worse is yet to come, during a press conference on Wednesday.
He told a Downing Street briefing: "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.
"What we've got is two epidemics on top of one another - an existing Delta epidemic, roughly flat, and a very rapidly growing Omicron epidemic on top of it."
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