The Prime Minister has moved to reassure people they will be able to celebrate Christmas with loved ones following the news that the the new Omicron variant had been found in Nottingham.
Mr Johnson said: "I am extremely confident this Christmas will be considerably better than last Christmas.
The Omicron variant has been detected both here and in Essex in two cases which the Government said are connected and are connected to travel to South Africa.
The Prime Minister held a press conference on Saturday, November 27, afternoon where he confirmed new restrictions on face masks and international travel were being introduced in the wake of the news of the variant.
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When questioned about the prospect for this year’s festivities at a Downing Street press conference relating to the new coronavirus variant, Boris Johnson said: “We continue to be in a strong position largely thanks to the speed of the vaccine rollout, another booster rollout and I think I’m going to stick with the formula I’ve used before, which is I’m pretty confident to absolutely confident this Christmas will be considerably better than last Christmas.”
During the briefing the Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told the Downing Street press conference that “three things need to be done” in the face of the new variant.
He said: “The first is to try to limit the number of cases that enter the country from places that have got lots of cases. And that means trying to detect people and prevent them from spreading in the country.
“The second is to make sure that when we do have cases in the country, and we will have cases just as other countries will have, that we try and limit spread in the country and that means detecting those cases, making sure the contacts are identified.
“And the third is to bolster our defences. And the defences are first and foremost to make sure that the vaccines are boosted because very high levels of antibody coverage will create a higher proportion of people protected even against a variant.”
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