Covid: No need to cancel Christmas party, says Boris Johnson

As more cases of the Omicron variant are identified, the government is adamant the vaccine booster programme will “buy the time” needed to assess it.

Boris Johnson has said everyone who is eligible will be offered one by the end of January.

The government is hoping this, coupled with today’s new mask measures and restrictions on travel from countries in southern Africa, will be enough to contain it.

But a leading professor of vaccinology in Johannesburg has warned Channel 4 News that it is travel restrictions like these that are hampering the global effort to tackle the variant.