BORIS Johnson will today unveil his full Omicron battleplan to MPs after vowing not to impose any new crippling restrictions.
After a Cabinet meeting, the PM will confirm to the Commons he is sticking with Plan B measures to work from home, wear masks indoors and vaccine passports.
But despite record-smashing Omicron cases, the PM has declared tougher rules were not needed and likely never will be.
At an upbeat Downing St press conference last night BoJo hailed: “We have a chance to ride out this Omicron wave without shutting down our country once again.”
Top doc Sir Patrick Vallance told the nation “it was now clear” the variant was not as severe as previous mutations following a string of studies finding it cuts the risk of serious illness by up to 70 per cent.
Mr Johnson is confident that boosters, rather than crippling Covid curbs, give Brits the best chance of beating the virus and sent up another plea for people to get jabbed.
Trending In The News’s Jab’s Army campaign is helping turbo-charge the rollout by getting vital shots into arms.
In major developments:
- The PM is primed to scrap PCR tests for people who have a positive lateral flow
- Costly pre-departure tests for holidays are also destined to be axed
- Ministers confirmed around a million people are currently isolating
- Almost 220,000 cases of Covid were recorded yesterday
Cabinet Ministers are meeting this morning to rubber-stamp the extension of Plan B measures, which are up for review today.
Extending the controversial curbs do not require a vote in Parliament but Mr Johnson is bracing for more anger from Tory MPs who oppose them.
But lockdown-hating backbenchers were buoyed by his decision not to impose fresh restrictions.
At Downing St last night the PM said: “We can keep our schools and our businesses open, and we can find a way to live with this virus.”
He added the country has a “good chance of getting through the Omicron wave without the need for further restrictions” and ruled out a full-fat lockdown.
The PM warned our freedoms hinge on people getting vaccinated and begged the nine million un-boosted Brits to get jabbed.
In a sobering wake-up call he said “people are dying needlessly because they haven’t had their jabs, they haven’t had that booster”.
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A record 218,000 new Covid cases were recorded yesterday as Mr Johnson said he was putting the NHS on a “war footing”.
And he announced plans for 100,000 critical workers to be fast-tracked for lateral flow tests to stop the country grinding to a halt.
Care Minister Gillian Keegan confirmed today that 350million tests would be made available in January and February.
She revealed a million Brits were currently isolating, which is causing widespread shortages in key sectors.
To streamline testing capacity, the PM is primed to announce that confirmatory PCRs will no longer be required for people testing positive on lateral flows.
Costly and complex travel rules requiring pre-departure tests are also set to be scrapped now Omicron is widespread globally.
