New Omicron infections in the UK are running at 200,000 a day, dwarfing the number of officially confirmed cases, according to an estimate from the UK Health Security Agency.
The new figure, which was revealed by health secretary Sajid Javid in the House of Commons, added urgency to Boris Johnson’s promise to offer all eligible adults in England a Covid-19 vaccine booster jab by the end of the year.
The total number of Omicron cases, which have been confirmed by genomic sequencing, stood at around 4,700 on Monday after 1,576 new cases were recorded. But the UKHSA estimates the true number of daily infections is far higher based on its modelling.