Over the weekend, the Omicron Covid variant continued to take hold in the North East - there have been at least 1,505 cases in our area, and potentially another 920 yet to be confirmed.
That's according to data published by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). And the UKHSA's data also shows that the number of Omicron cases is doubling in the North East less than every two days.
However, the number of cases of the variant still remain low as a proportion of all confirmed Covid cases in the region. The data - published on Sunday and covering until 6pm on Saturday - shows 36.9% of the cases are likely to be Omicron.
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In London, that figure was up to a staggering 86.9%. The capital - where a "major incident" has now been declared - has seen more than 10,000 Omicron cases.
Across the country, there have been more that 34,000. But there are a further 82,000 cases where testing has not found the "S-gene" - this is an indicator that a Covid sample could be Omicron.
Nationally, Omicron cases are doubling in less than two days in every area apart from the South West.
This comes after senior politicians sat down at a meeting of the COBRA committee on Sunday evening to discuss the latest situation and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is said to have "cleared his diary" for a series of meetings with scientists today.
There are fears the Government will be forced to "cancel Christmas" again - as official statistics show there were another 82,866 cases of Covid on Sunday, up more than 50% in the past week.
Over the weekend, Health Secretary Sajid Javid refused to rule out imposing more coronavirus restrictions before Christmas.
Mr Javid told the BBC's Andrew Marr show: "There are no guarantees in this pandemic, I don’t think. At this point we just have to keep everything under review."
Last night government scientists warned hospitalisations could reach 3,000 per day in the next few weeks if tougher restrictions are not introduced.
Mr Javid said the analysis from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) was "sobering" and called on Brits to be cautious.
