NHS England will return to highest level of emergency preparedness with the Omicron variant causing alarm among experts, it has been announced.
The move by health service bosses comes after the Prime Minister warned of a "tidal wave of Omicron", with cases of the mutant strain rocketing.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid told MPs this afternoon: “There are now 4,713 confirmed cases of Omicron in the UK.
“And the UK Health Security Agency estimates that the current rate of, the current number of daily infections are around 200,000.
“While Omicron represents over 20% of cases in England, we’ve already seen it rise to over 44% in London and we expect it to become the dominant Covid 19 variant in the capital in the next 48 hours.”
He added: “It’s vital we remember that hospitalisations and deaths lag infections by around two weeks so we can expect those numbers to dramatically increase in the days and weeks that lie ahead.
“In preparation, the UK’s four chief medical officers raised the Covid alert level to four, its second-highest level, this was done over the weekend.
“And NHS England has just announced that it will return to its highest level of emergency preparedness, level four national incident.
“This means the NHS response to Omicron will be coordinated as a national effort rather than led by individual trusts.”
