UK Covid live: Sajid Javid says Omicron makes up 20% of cases in England

• 4.53pm GMT16:53 Javid says people will need boosters to count as fully vaccinated for Covid pass in new year
• 4.42pm GMT16:42 No 10 hints it would only close schools in 'direst emergency'
• 4.27pm GMT16:27 Javid says even with plan B England will have 'far fewer' restrictions in place than European countries
• 4.19pm GMT16:19 Javid says Omicron variant makes up 20% of cases in England
• 4.14pm GMT16:14 Hoyle threatens to play 'hardball' with PM over his disrespect for Commons over Covid announcements
• 4.12pm GMT16:12 Sajid Javid's statement to MPs on Covid
• 3.21pm GMT15:21 Omicron patients hospitalised in England aged between 18 and 85, UKHSA says

Getting booster jabs to all Scots aged 18 and above by the end of this year will be a “monumental challenge”, Nicola Sturgeon has conceded. PA Media says:

With the vaccination programme being accelerated in a bid to combat the new Omicron variant of the virus, the first minister said she did not underestimate the scale of the challenge.

But as she stressed vaccination was the “best line of defence” against Omicron, Sturgeon said: “We’ve got to bust a gut to get this programme done as quickly as possible.”

To meet the ambition of offering all eligible adults a booster dose of vaccine by the end of December means that more than 70,000 Scots a day will need to get jagged, it has been estimated.

Sturgeon, who has previously warned Omicron could lead to a “tsunami” of new infections, told BBC Scotland that government officials were currently working with local health boards to speed up the programme.

The first minister said they were considering “all of the possible options to build capacity in a system that is already operating at a very fast pace”.

This will be done by a combination of bringing in additional staff to give the injections, increasing the number of appointments at vaccine centres and looking at opening up new centres.

Denis Campbell

NHS leaders in England have told MPs that they would be “irresponsible” not to approve the government’s Plan B when parliament votes on its provisions tomorrow. Matthew Taylor, chef executive of the NHS Confederation, said:

Given the rapidly rising infection levels from Omicron and how much pressure the NHS is under already, we are urging MPs to vote in favour of the government’s plan b interventions.

We may find that these measures are not enough but with independent modelling suggesting that Omicron could cause up to 75,000 deaths in England and over 490,000 hospitalisations by the end of April, it would be irresponsible not to give them a go.

Failing to put in place measures to slow the spread of coronavirus could lead to much tougher restrictions being introduced next year, Taylor added. The NHS Confederation represents NHS care provider organisations in England and Wales.

Taylor went on:

If Omicron is allowed to spread out of control then the worry is that far stricter interventions will be needed in the new year and no one wants tougher measures when it is clear they can have a devastating impact on people’s health and wellbeing.

The NHS is working at lightning speed to ramp up the booster programme and our members expect parliament to use its position of influence to send a strong statement in the national interest.

In his opening statement Sajid Javid seemed to be talking about there being 200,000 Omicron infections per day, but he may have been talking about 200,000 Covid infections per day over all. The Department of Health and Social Care have been asked to clarify this, and an official is due to call me back. In the meantime I have taken down the headline on the post at 4.19pm.

Recorded Covid cases are running at around 50,000 per day - today’s figure is 54,661 - but many people who are ill do not do a test, and many people get infected asymptomatically.

The ONS Covid surveillance report published last week estimated that more than one million people in the UK had the virus, but that was covering the week ending 1 December.

Mark Harper, chair of the lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group, asked for an assurance that the government would recall parliament over Christmas if it wants to tighten regulations.

He has been asking this question repeatedly in recent days without getting an assurance MPs would get a vote. And Javid did not give him one today. He just said there were no plans for further restrictions over the recess.

The i’s Paul Waugh says that, judging by Sajid Javid’s comments in this statement, now seems keen to argue that the plan for Covid passes, or passports, isn’t really about these documents at all.

Iain Duncan Smith (Con) asked if the government would get rid of the rule requiring people to wait in a clinic for 15 minutes after getting a Pfizer or Moderna jab. (See 3.37pm.) Javid said this was being “very actively looked at” and an announcement would be coming soon.

In his opening statement Sajid Javid also announced that once all adults have had a reasonable chance to get a booster, the Covid pass rules will change so that only people who have had the booster count as fully vaccinated

That means early in the new year, presumably, given the govrenment wants all adults to have the chance to get a booster before the end of the month.

The Labour MP Ben Bradshaw says almost all Tory MPs in the chamber this afternoon are wearing a mask.

At the afternoon lobby briefing Downing Street indicated schools in England would only be closed in “the direst ... emergency”.

The PM’s spokesman said:

Throughout we’ve always sought to keep face-to-face schooling open and have only restricted it in when there’s the direst public health emergency.

There’s certainly no plans to do that. We think we’ve got the right balance through plan B and our big uptick in boosters.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said that Labour supported the target of getting vaccinations up to 1m per day. He said this may prove impossible, “but we applaud the ambition”. He went on:

If anyone can do it, the NHS can and the whole country will be willing them on and will not knock them for trying.

But he suggested Javid was “living on a different planet” if he thought lateral flow tests were easily available.

And he ended with what he said were words aimed directly at members of the public. He said:

We realise on these benches the prime minister has tested patience by asking people to follow the rules when ... the prime minister’s actions in recent weeks have undermined trust at a critical moment.

So I say to people feeling let down or lied to ... I do trust the chief medical officer. I do trust the chief scientific adviser and I do trust the NHS.

The prime minister might not lead by example, but the rest of us can. We, the Labour party, trust you, the British people, to do the right thing to protect yourselves, to protect the ones you love and to protect the NHS.

Javid says we have also learned that a booster jab provides strong protection against Omicron.

He repeats what Boris Johnson announced last night about the booster rollout being speeded up. To meet the target of every adult getting a booster, vaccinations will have to take rate at a much faster rate than before.

Until now the highest number of jabs that we’ve delivered in a single day in the UK was over 840,000. We’ll not only need to match that but we will need to beat that every day.

He says people who have had Covid recently should wait 28 days until after their infection before getting the booster.

He confirms that non-urgent medical appointment are being postponed.

He says MPs are voting on the new restrictions tomorrow.

Even with plan B, we still have far fewer restrictions in place than Europe.

And he says from tomorrow a fully-vaccinated contact of an Omicron case will be able to take a lateral flow test every day, instead of having to self-isolate.

He says the Covid pass for international travel will be rolled out for 12- to 15-year-olds.

And he says, “with a heavy heart”, the government is limiting visits to people in care homes to just three nominated visitors, not including nominated care-givers.

Sajid Javid says no variant has spread as fast as Omicron.

He says that infections are estimated to currently be running at 200,000 per day.

There are now 4,713 confirmed cases of Omicron in the UK.

And the UK Health Security Agency estimates that the current number of daily infections are around 200,000.

While Omicron represents over 20% of cases in England, we’ve already seen it rise to over 44% in London and we expect it to become the dominant Covid 19 variant in the capital in the next 48 hours.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, starts by expressing his disappointment that Boris Johnson is not making this statement himself.

He says given the PM made a TV statement last night he should have been here in person.

He says he is really, really disappointed TV is taking precedence over the Commons.

UPDATE: Hoyle said:

Before I call the secretary of state for health and social care I want to put on record my disappointment the prime minister is not here to make this statement.

Can I say, last night when the secretary of state called me to say that the prime minister felt the need to make the announcement to the country yesterday, I am surprised that he did not therefore think it appropriate to come to this House to answer questions to announce it today.

I have got to say I have respect for the secretary of state for health but I am really, really disappointed that once again this house has become second runner-up to TV news.

Not acceptable. If this is a game we are going to play, we are going to have to play hardball.

Sajid Javid, the health secretary, is about to make a statement to MPs about Covid.