The UK could face “more stringent measures” after Christmas to counter the spread of the Omicron variant over the festive season, an expert has told Sky News.

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter said the emergence of Omicron in the UK was “appalling timing” as the next few weeks are “one of the highest risk periods… with a lot of indoor socialising”.

He said that the government “would love not to disrupt Christmas”, but he warned: “What happens after Christmas is another matter.

“The travel restrictions are only going to slow things down a little, they’re not going to stop it.

“In the New Year we’re likely to see a lot of challenges and that could mean more stringent measures.”

But although the UK is still waiting for real-world data on the new variant, Professor Spiegelhalter, a statistician at the University of Cambridge, said that currently it does not appear to have as much of a risk of severe disease.

“It doesn’t look as if it’s really severe if you get it,” he said. “I think that’s about all we can say at the moment.”

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He also praised the booster vaccines for “saving very large numbers of lives”.

“It’s a very strange situation we’re in where cases in young people are going up, but cases in old people are coming down,” he said.

“That’s the booster effect – we are being saved by boosters essentially – they are extraordinarily effective.”

He said that after three doses of a COVID vaccine “you are more protected than you have ever been, even from the beginning”.

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