Don't Miss
Most Read
Trending on GB News
The Government said a further 88,376 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases have been recorded in the UK as of 9am on Thursday, the highest daily total recorded since the pandemic began and almost 10,000 more than the previous record set on Wednesday.
The surge in cases was piling pressure on a health service struggling with staff sickness, England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said on Thursday.
Omicron is so transmissible that even if it proves to be milder than other variants, it could still cause a surge in hospital admissions, Whitty told lawmakers.
The record for the number of people admitted to hospital with Covid-19 is 4,583 set in January.
"It is possible, because this is going to be very concentrated over a short period of time, even if it's milder, you could end up with a higher number than that going into hospital on a single day," he said.
However, he said vaccinations could cut the numbers admitted to intensive care and shorten the time spent in hospital. On Thursday there were 849 admissions.
Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency, said there were 15 proven cases of Omicron in hospitals, but that the number was likely to be much higher.
Although new cases were at a record high according to official data, Britain did not have mass testing capacity in March 2020 when the pandemic first hit the country, and so the scale of infections at that point is unknown.
The Government said a further 146 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19.
Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have now been 172,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
The education minister also warned of problems with staff shortages, and said his department would work with ex teachers who wanted to return to the profession to help.
The government has also advised people to work from home, mandated mask wearing in public places and has introduced Covid-19 passes to enter some venues and events in England, but has stopped short of previous lockdown measures.
"If it looked as if the vaccines were less effective than we were expecting, that for example would be a material change to how ministers viewed the risks going forward," Whitty said.