The Omicron variant is now in Britain. Here’s how we beat it

As feared, Covid-19 is not going quietly. The arrival of the Omicron strain in Britain – with cases already identified in 

Chelmsford and in Nottingham – is clearly not the news we wanted as we prepare for the Christmas holidays. The Prime Minister will hold a press conference later today, likely to mark a distinct change in tone. For a while, it was possible to feel that our vaccine programme, supported by better treatments, mass testing and non-pharmaceutical interventions had started to defeat the virus. So, we started to turn our focus to other activities such as levelling up, addressing the NHS waiting lists, climate change, violence against women and girls, and bickering with the French.

But the surge in infection rates in continental Europe has shown that Covid-19 has not been defeated in the way we might have hoped. In the UK, the virus seems to have become endemic with around 1 in 65 infected, according to the ONS Covid Infection Survey, though the vaccine programme has resulted in a much lower level of hospitals admissions and deaths when compared with previous peaks.