Mask wearing and other new Covid rules ‘set to be extended into the new year’
But ministers hope they will be enough to save Christmas.
Emergency measures brought in to halt the spread of the Omicron Covid variant are likely to be extended into the new year, according to reports.
Compulsory mask wearing in shops and public transport could remain a requirement until at least January 11 as scientists continue to study how dangerous the new strain actually is.
Ministers set a three week deadline for reviewing the rules when they were brought in last week.
They are currently due to expire on December 21 but it is thought this will not be enough time to gather crucial data on the spread and severity of Omicron.
Other restrictions, including self isolation periods for close contacts of Omicron cases and testing requirements for travel are also likely to stay, the Daily Mail reported.
Boris Johnson may not make an official decision until the last minute however – perhaps as late as December 18.
The Government are hoping to avert the need to move to even stricter measures, despite cases of Omicron increasing by more than 50% yesterday.
Boris Johnson has resisted implementing his full ‘Plan B’ which would involve people being told to work from home and the widespread use of vaccine passports.
A Whitehall source told the Daily Mail: ‘In terms of Plan B, we are not there yet. The ambition is that people can have a much more normal Christmas than last year.
‘That depends on what the data shows about the new variant. But certainly the hope is that things stay as they are in the next couple of weeks.’
Yesterday, a leading expert said it was ‘already too late’ to stop the spread of the variant, despite pre-travel tests being made mandatory on Saturday.
The UK now faces a nervous wait to see whether the more transmissible strain is also more deadly – although anecdotal evidence from South Africa, where it was first detected, has shown Omicron may actually cause milder disease.
Mark Woolhouse, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) which advises the Government, said the measures would not make a ‘material difference’ as the variant is already ‘spreading pretty rapidly’.
He told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday: ‘I think that may be a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
‘If Omicron is here in the UK, and it certainly is, if there’s community transmission in the UK, and it certainly looks that way, then it’s that community transmission that will drive a next wave.
‘The cases that are being imported are important, we want to detect those and isolate any positive cases we find, as we would for any case anywhere.
‘But I think it’s too late to make a material difference to the course of the Omicron wave, if we’re going to have one.’
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