In the past fortnight, a heavily mutated Covid variant has been identified, rapidly labelled a "variant of concern" by the World Health Organization and named Omicron. It was first detected in South Africa and the spread some countries including the UK, Hong Kong and a few others.
It is a rapidly evolving situation. Omicron's genetic profile has raised concerns, but there's a shortage of real-world data that means nobody has the complete picture of what it can do.
It is unclear how big a threat it poses.
People are twice as likely to need hospital care if they are sick with the Delta Covid variant, rather than the Alpha variant that was once prevalent in the UK, data from England suggests.
