Omicron is a 'serious threat' and what we know is bad, UK health official says

England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said on Wednesday that the Omicron coronavirus variant posed a really serious threat and that what health officials already knew about it was "bad".

"This is a really serious threat at the moment. The how big a threat - there are several things we don't know, but all the things that we do know, are bad," Whitty told a news conference.

"And the principle one being the speed at which this is moving, it is moving at an absolutely phenomenal pace."

He added: "We do have some things going for us this time of which the most important is the existence of effective vaccines and the ability to boost at speed at this stage." 

The United Kingdom recorded its most daily coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic on Wednesday. 

A further 78,610 Covid-19 infections were reported, about 10,000 more than the previous high reported in January.

More than 11 million people have now tested positive for the disease in the United Kingdom, which has a total population of around 67 million.

With a new highly transmissible Omicron variant of the virus surging across Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned of a "tidal wave" of infections