British education secretary Nadhim Zahawi on Monday said the Omicron variant of coronavirus is spreading among people aged 50 and above, however, added that the data do not suggest the need for further restrictions. Zahawi told BBC radio that the high uptake of booster jabs by older people means there is no need for further restrictions at the moment despite “leakage” of infection into people over-50s.
"We're seeing leakage into the over-50s in terms of infection," he said. "They are boosted - 90% of the over 50s are boosted."
Zahawi said that the British government would assess the Covid situation in England on Wednesday.
"There's nothing in the data at the moment that would make me believe we need to go further."
Britain has been witnessing an exponential surge in Covid cases, largely driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant. According to Our World in Data, the United Kingdom is reporting over 2,800 new Covid cases per million people every day for the last seven days. France, the US, and Canada are also witnessing a worrying surge in Covid cases per capita.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the Omicron variant is “plainly milder” than previous variants and is putting fewer people into intensive care units (ICU). With high vaccination coverage, Johnson insisted that the right measures were in place to tackle the surge.
"The way forward for the country as a whole is to continue with the path that we are on," he told broadcasters on Monday.
{{/usCountry}}"The way forward for the country as a whole is to continue with the path that we are on," he told broadcasters on Monday.
{{/usCountry}}"Of course, we will keep all measures under review, but the mixture of things that we are doing at the moment is I think the right one."