Omicron variant coronavirus cases in hospitals says Nadhim Zahawi

Nadhim Zahawi said he could confirm that there are “cases in hospital with Omicron”.

The Education Secretary said “We’ve been able to test people who are in hospital over the past two weeks, and so there is a lag to hospitalisation.”

Meanwhile, asked whether there were plans to vaccinate primary school children, the former vaccines minister added: “There is no plan at the moment to vaccinate primary school children for the reason that the Joint Committee on Vaccination (and Immunisation, JCVI) is still looking at the evidence as to what level of protection it would offer those.”

He added: “The most important thing is to boost the most vulnerable – that is absolutely the priority.”

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi told Sky News that Omicron was “so infectious that it will dominate and exponentially grow”.

He said: “Let’s do a mathematic exercise for a second. You get to a million infections by say the end of December – 1% is 10,000 severe infections that could be in hospital.

“Three days later it is two million, three days later it is four million. Three days beyond that it is eight million.

“That is the risk, that even if it is milder, say 50% milder than Delta, then the numbers are huge – it is a small percentage of a very large population.

“That is the big difference. The reason we are taking these proportionate, I think precautionary measures – the most significant thing, scientists tell us, is the work from home, that has the greatest impact on slowing down Omicron, hence why we’ve had to take these measures.”

He added: “This is going to be a national endeavour to boost the nation as quickly as possible so we can control Omicron and bring back that equilibrium that we had with the virus, as we continue to protect the economy and of course on that journey towards endemic from pandemic status.”