Omicron is the dominant variant in the UK and has been for a week.
The UK Health Security Agency reported 15,363 new Omicron cases across the UK on 20 December, equivalent to just 17% of the cases reported by the government the same day.
Why is the total number of confirmed cases so low when there are so many fears about this new variant?
There are confirmed Omicron cases.
In the past week, the UK reported an average of 88,000 Covid cases a day. Only a small portion of those cases are being picked up through the type of tests that are carried out in a walk-in centre.
Not all UK laboratories have the ability to do these checks. The UKHSA needs data on variant types.
In the seven-day period to 15 December, about 60,000 positive PCR checks were being processed each day, with roughly half of them going to the four labs for sequencing.
