new restrictions in england for now, though he says he cannot rule out any further measures after that. borisjohnson said the government is continuing to monitor the spread of omicron very closely and the situtaion is finely balanced. but he said there is continuing uncertainty about the severity of the new variant and not enough evidence to justify tougher measures in england before saturday. scotland has announced new restrictions from boxing day. our health editor hugh pym reports. as the booster programme continued in scunthorpe and around the country, there was a clearer message from the government about christmas in england. go ahead with your plans as there won t be any new measures affecting them. but, given the threat of omicron, nothing can be ruled out after that. speaking before that announcement, one minister suggested they weren t rushing tojudgment. we minister suggested they weren t rushing to judgment. rushing to udgment. we are looking ve rushing to judgment. we are
be able omicron in equilibria, then we will be able to omicron in equilibria, then we will be able to move forward as before. so please, be able to move forward as before. so please, everybody, play your part and get so please, everybody, play your part and get boosted. i am now going to hand over and get boosted. i am now going to hand over to chris to do the slides. thank hand over to chris to do the slides. thank you. hand over to chris to do the slides. thank you, prime minister. i wanted to situate this initially on where we are with delta, because what is happening is omicron is coming on the back of a still high rate of delta transmission and hospitalisation. in the first light, what we have is the number of people testing positive for covid in the uk, and that has been drifting upwards, to very rapid rate, but it has been drifting upwards. the omicron data are not really going to be visible in this for a few days, but they will become visible over time. next slide, p