Third case found in UK

transport and in shops, banks and hairdressers again from tomorrow;

Secondary schools, colleges and univeristies in England were told that pupils, staff and visitors should wear masks in communal areas;

The UK will convene an urgent meeting of G7 health ministers today to discuss the new variant;

Ministers were urged to slash the cost of PCR tests to stop families being priced out of going abroad this Christmas.

NHS bosses are working to rapidly increase the capacity of the vaccination programme from the six million doses that had been scheduled for England alone over the next three weeks.

The deputy chairman of the JCVI said it was right to give over-18s a booster earlier than anticipated amid concerns over the new variant and the impact of winter pressures on the NHS.

Professor Anthony Harnden also backed reducing the interval between the second and booster doses. He told BBC Radio 4’s

Broadcasting House: ‘There’s a very good, strong argument for raising the antibody level in the whole of the community.

‘So, accelerating the booster programme, both by extending the age range and by reducing the interval between the second dose and the booster dose, will be a sensible strategy. Those adults 18-plus will have an offer of a booster earlier than we had previously envisaged.’

Pharmaceutical giants yesterday suggested a new vaccine to fight against Omicron could be ready on a large scale at the start of next year.

The chief medical officer of Moderna has said while it was a ‘dangerous-looking’ variant, he was optimistic about fighting it. Paul Burton added: ‘We have cause to be hopeful, we’ve learnt a lot about this virus in general.

‘We’ve learned so much about how to deal with Covid as well, through simple measures, and obviously through vaccines, but we need to see how this virus now behaves in populations of older people, people with other comorbidities.

‘We really want to get a handle on exactly how severe the disease could be. This is a dangerous-looking virus, but I think we have many tools in our armamentarium now to get to fight it, so I’m optimistic.’

Dr Burton said researchers would have a better idea about the effectiveness of current vaccines against Omicron in the next couple of weeks, but if a new vaccine was required it could be produced on a large scale by early 2022. Dr Jenny Harries, of the UK Health Security Agency, said more Omicron cases were likely but Britain’s advanced sequencing capabilities would ‘enable us to find variants and take rapid action to limit onward spread’.

Yesterday the UK reported 37,681 virus cases and 51 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

‘We now have many tools to fight it’