Dr Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency, told a select committee on Thursday that for Omicron the R value was between 3 and 5 in the UK and that the variant was spreading rapidly – doubling in size every two days.
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Hopkins said data on the severity of Omicron would not be known for another fortnight. At least 250 patients would need to be admitted to hospital before there could be a statistical analysis of the disease, she said

UK Covid live: Queen cancels pre-Christmas lunch; Omicron R number estimated to be between 3 and 5 ► https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/dec/16/uk-covid-christmas-omicron-cases-booster-vaccine-coronavirus-boris-johnson-latest-updates?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-61bb19cb8f088faae41c4e9e#block-61bb19cb8f088faae41c4e9e

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