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 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."
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