good morning. why does the uk need my bank holidays? my bank holidays? every work it deserves a my bank holidays? every work it deserves a break my bank holidays? every work it deserves a break and my bank holidays? every work it deserves a break and time i my bank holidays? every work it deserves a break and time to i my bank holidays? every work it i deserves a break and time to spend with theirfriends and deserves a break and time to spend with their friends and family but wheat work some of the longest hour in europe and get some of the fewest bank holidays and we are calling for us to be brought up to the eu average. we would like four extra bank holidays per year and we would like to start a national conversation about when we should have them. mr; conversation about when we should have them- have them. my very next question, when would have them. my very next question, when would you have them. my very next question, when would you put have them. my very next questi
but still nowhere near critical levels. and i think the fact is that, you know, there s still some doubt and confusion about the real dangerousness of omicron. people are worried about it, it is clearly extremely contagious, but the figures just aren t in yet from south africa, from the uk, which is a bit ahead of france, on what it all means for death rates, intensive care beds and so on. and in the meantime, we re all slightly in the dark. i m guessing that the optimistic scenario is that you have a very, very wide contagion with many, many, many people getting it, but not getting it too badly. it s a gamble. that s what everyone hopes. but there s no reason at the moment to rule that as a possibility out. in the us the health system remains under pressure after america recorded its highest daily rise in covid infections. government modelling in the country seems to suggest that the heavily mutated
these numbers are driven by the rapid spread of the 0micron variant. here s our political correspondent ben wright. we are still within a rising wave of infection. it s surging across the country. and this is what ministers and officials had expected. what we have seen is a sort of fracturing of the response to these figures across the uk. so we ve seen the governments in wales, scotland, northern ireland announce tighter curves for people s activities after christmas day, whereas we wait, of course, to see if that s a path that the westminster government is going to go down for england. at the moment, they have said no new restrictions in england before christmas day. after that, there remains a huge question mark. this is a graph of uk cases in december. eight of the ten highest daily totals have been this month. but government modelling had estimated the uk would be at 200,000 cases a day by now.