The Omicron variant is “probably the most significant threat” to public since the start of the covid pandemic, one of the UK’s leading medical advisers has warned.
Dr Jenny Harries, the head of the UK Health Security Agency, said the new variant will lead to huge rise in the number of cases over the next few days that could put the NHS in “serious peril”.
Harries delivered her message to MPs on the Commons Transport Committee amid suggestions that more than one million people will have to isolate with covid on Christmas Day as the new variant rips through the population.
She further warned the covid infection figures that will appear in the next few days could be “quite staggering” compared to rate of growth of previous variants.
Harries said: “The real potential risk here... is in relation to it’s clinical severity and there whether those cases turn into severe disease, hospitalisations and deaths.
“We’re still at too early stage for that, in fact the world probably is still at too early stage to be clear.
“The difficulty is that the growth of this virus, it has a doubling time which is shortening - it’s doubling faster, growing faster."
Harries told MPs that in most regions in the UK the doubling rate for the new strain is under two days.
She added: “So if you think of that growth rate right across the UK, and we’re starting to see it and feel it now in London particularly, but yesterday particularly around Manchester, and we’re very sure there are levels growing across most communities in the UK now, although there is quite a lot of regional variation still.”
The rapid spread of the new variant has sparked serious alarm in Government, with Whitehall figures privately considering adopting the kind of guidance to restrict Christmas gatherings and to re-introduce social distancing in hospitality and retail that the Sottish Government announced on Tuesday.
But having suffered a massive Commons rebellion of close on 100 Tory MPs over plans for covid passports for large venues Boris Johnson would face huge obstacles in tightening rules further.
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