Cases of new ‘variant of concern’ have now been identified in London, Essex, Nottinghamshire and at two locations in Scotland
At schools, a church and a branch of KFC, public health officials have been scrambling to track people infected by Omicron in a stiff new test of the UK’s widely criticised £37bn test-and-trace programme.
On Monday, new cases of the Covid “variant of concern” emerged in two London locations, bringing the running UK total to 11, while testing was launched at a school in West Bridgford in Nottinghamshire and at Larchwood Primary school in Brentwood, where one class was sent home. Customers, staff and delivery drivers at the KFC in the Essex town’s high street last Friday afternoon were also urged to get tests, as were the congregation of the nearby Trinity Church.
