The ‘Three Options’ Boris Johnson Is Considering To Halt Omicron

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is reportedly now considering ‘three options’ in a bid to halt the spread of the new Omicron variant.

Officials have presented the PM with three different options for further restrictions.

These options are understood to be of varying degrees of toughness, with the lowest level involving asking members of the public to limit indoor contact with others. Under this guidance, measures wouldn’t be legally enforced.

Option three would be the strictest, and would see the announcement of a full ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown. Ministers are also understood to be discussing the possibility of implementing restrictions from Boxing Day onwards, which would mean the closing of pubs and restaurants.

According to its modelling of the pandemic, SAGE predicts that unless the government introduces intervention that goes further than the current ‘Plan B’ restrictions, the hospital admissions rate in England will reach a peak of at least 3,000 people each day.

Experts have warned against waiting until 2022 before introducing tougher measures, with SAGE suggesting that restrictions ‘similar in scale to the national lockdown’ would be required to keep hospital admissions low.