The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson will address the nation tonight at 8pm in a recorded speech.
The speech has been recorded today (Sunday) as the UK gets ready to heavily increase its booster jab roll out.
Britain’s Covid Alert level has been raised from 3 to 4 due to the quick spread of cases.
The emergency press conference comes after the UK experienced its highest daily spike in Omicron cases yet as an additional 1,239 were confirmed.
The total number of UK cases of Omicron stand at 3,137, a 65% increase from Saturday’s total of 1,898 UK cases.
Increasing the UK Covid alert level to Level 4 means the epidemic is “in general circulation, transmission is high and direct Covid-19 pressure on healthcare services is widespread and substantial or rising”, according to Government guidance.
In a joint statement, the CMOs and NHS England’s Professor Stephen Powis said the emergence of Omicron “adds additional and rapidly increasing risk to the public and healthcare services”.
They also added: “Early evidence shows that Omicron is spreading much faster than Delta and that vaccine protection against symptomatic disease from Omicron is reduced.
“Data on severity will become clearer over the coming weeks but hospitalisations from Omicron are already occurring and these are likely to increase rapidly.”
Of the total new cases, 1,196 were reported in England with 2,953 overall recorded.
