Amid Omicron scare and soaring cases of the COVID-19 variant across the globe, Prime Minister Boris Johnson hinted on holding a press announcement to propose new restrictions in the United Kingdom.
The U.K. government could be poised to announced more Covid restrictions for England amid concerns over the spread of the omicron variant, according to a report in the Financial Times on Wednesday.
Sources told the paper that the government had decided to implement its so-called “Plan B” of increased restrictions.
According to CNBC, despite a continuing surge of Covid cases in the U.K. (with 336,893 new cases reported in the last seven days) the government has been reluctant to trigger its “Plan B” and said it would only do so if Covid cases threatened to severely impact the health care service’s ability to function.
'Under Plan B, the Government expects to introduce mandatory vaccine certification in a limited number of settings, with specific characteristics. The Government hopes that it would not be necessary to mandate vaccine certification more widely than these settings, though this cannot be entirely ruled out,' CNBC report mentioned, adding that 'if Plan B is implemented, it could be at short notice in response to concerning data.'
As per reports, critics of the government are likely to see any introduction of more restrictive measures as a way to distract public attention from widespread news coverage of an alleged Christmas party that took place in Downing Street last year which breached Covid rules.
