Britain reports highest number of daily cases since pandemic began

LONDON • Britain reported 78,610 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, the highest number of infections in a single day since the start of the pandemic, and stark confirmation that the Omicron variant is rampaging across the country.

New cases spiked by a third since Tuesday. The number is more than 10,000 higher than the previous worst day for infections - on Jan 8 - when the Alpha variant was ravaging the country. The seven-day average of new cases is 65,008, a 19.1 per cent increase over the previous seven-day period.

Officials did not say what share of the new cases might be Omicron, though they said a majority in London were from the variant.

Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty warned that further records would be broken in the coming days, with cases of the Omicron variant doubling at a rate of less than every two days in parts of the country. He said the National Health Service would face a deluge of patients because the growth in cases was so explosive.

"This is a really serious threat," Professor Whitty said at a news conference. "It is moving at an absolutely phenomenal pace."

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said hospitalisation rates in London were up by a third.

British hospitals, particularly in London, are struggling to maintain staffing levels due to the number who are having to isolate with Covid-19, a senior emergency doctor said yesterday.

"The acute problem is actually to do with staffing," Dr Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told BBC Radio. "Even if we are not seeing a big rise in hospitalisations yet, we are already seeing the effect on not having the staff to run shifts properly and safely. So we are worried about patient harm coming about because we just don't have the staff."

Mr Johnson has redoubled his campaign for people to get booster shots. About 650,000 people were vaccinated on Tuesday, another record-breaking day. He has set a goal of getting boosters to all adults by the end of the month, a target that would require administering more than one million shots a day.

While Mr Johnson did not announce any additional restrictions, he urged the public to be judicious in socialising during the holidays. Parliament on Tuesday passed the government's plan to impose a vaccination certification requirement for entering nightclubs and large indoor venues.

Although there is preliminary evidence from South Africa that the Omicron variant is less severe than previous variants, Prof Whitty cautioned against over-interpreting the data. In Britain, 774 people were admitted to hospitals on Wednesday, a 10.4 per cent rise over the last seven-day period.

Urging the public to scale back their Christmas plans, he said: "Don't mix with people you don't have to."

Meanwhile, France will beef up controls on travellers arriving from Britain. The measures include reducing the validity of antigen rapid and polymerase chain reaction tests from 48 hours to 24 hours for arriving travellers, and limiting reasons to travel from Britain to France.

Travellers from Britain arriving in France will also have to self-isolate for seven days, though isolation will be lifted after 48 hours if their test conducted in France is negative.

NYTIMES, REUTERS