UK PM Orders Travel Quarantine and Mask-Wearing to Combat COVID-19 Omicron Variant
16:48 GMT 27.11.2021 (Updated: 15:17 GMT 28.05.2023)
© REUTERS / POOL / Britain's PM Johnson holds press conference on new coronavirus variant, in London
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Two cases of the newly-designated Omicron variant of COVID-19 were identified in the UK on Saturday, one in Nottingham and one in Chelmsford, Essex. The government has restricted travel to and from southern African nations, where the new strain is believed to have originated.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set out the government's response to the new COVID-19 Omicron variant at a Downing Street press conference.
Flanked by Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, his chief medical and scientific advisers, Johnson said the UK's plan "has been working", with falling numbers of hospitalisations and deaths.
"It does appear that Omicron spreads rapidly, and can be spread between people who are double vaccinated", Johnson said, and "could reduce the protection of our vaccines over time".
"We need to slow down the seeding of this variant" to "buy scientists time" and help the NHS prepare, he said. Intensive testing will be introduced in areas where outbreaks occur.
Anyone entering the UK will have to take a PCR test within 48 hours, and self-isolate until they test negative. Anyone coming into contact with a person infected with the new variant will have to isolate for 10 days, regardless of their vaccination status.
JUST IN: Boris Johnson says anyone entering the U.K. will have to take a PCR test, and all contacts of suspected omicron cases must isolate for 10 days, under tougher measures to slow the spread of the new coronavirus varianthttps://t.co/djNKMtFDby pic.twitter.com/VdEMp6B7D8
— Bloomberg UK (@BloombergUK) November 27, 2021
Johnson also said the government would "tighten up" rules for wearing face coverings in shops and on public transport. But he insisted that all new measures would be "temporary" and reviewed in three weeks' time.
27 November 2021, 11:27 GMT
Pressed on whether public mask-wearing would be made mandatory again, he said Health Secretary Sajid Javid would announce the details in the coming days.
But a tweet on the official 10 Downing Street account said masks would now be "compulsory" in shops and on public transport, but not in "hospitality" settings — pubs, restaurants, and hotels.
COVID UPDATE: Face coverings will become compulsory on public transport and in shops. Not including hospitality. pic.twitter.com/pq3TdftcOB
— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) November 27, 2021
And the PM said the COVID vaccine booster dose programme would be sped up with the target of six million more jabs in the next few weeks, taking the total to around 23 million.
"The best thing you can do is get your booster", Johnson stressed.
Whitty and Vallance repeated fears of the World Health Organisation and others that the new variant may be more transmissible and could possibly bypass immunity from existing vaccines and infections due to the large number of mutations identified in its surface proteins.
