Omicron cases ‘may be much higher'

The Omicron variant of coronavirus is likely to be more widespread in the UK than official numbers suggest as monitoring is patchy and there is a time lag in the data, scientists and officials have said.

- Rowena Mason Nicola Davis Jessica Elgot

Ministers said 336 cases had been identified by whole-genome sequencing, but experts said numbers were expected to be much higher given the variant’s potential for exponential growth and the fact it takes five to seven days for a case to be confirmed.

Sajid Javid, the health secretary, yesterday said there was community transmission of Omicron “across multiple regions of England”, and two scientists predicted that the variant would be dominant in the UK within the next “month or so”.

Javid said none of the confirmed cases of Omicron were believed to have been hospitalised with the virus. There were a further 51,459 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK yesterday, and a further 41 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus.

The quickest way of identifying Omicron cases is to check that the coronavirus S-gene cannot be detected in a sample, although it is not the only variant that gives such as a result.