The Health Secretary has clashed with Labour MP John Spellar after delivering an update on coronavirus to MPs. Sajid Javid shut down the Labour MP after the Government's handling of the omicron variant was called into question. He told Parliament that the UK had been the country to first identify the new strain and alert the world to the dangerous news variant. Mr Javid argued that no country had in fact been better prepared.

       Mr Javid told the Labour MP: "There are going to be variants of COVID-19, as the honourable gentleman says, for many years, and indeed there have been many hundreds of variants, and there is no country in the world that is better at surveillance of those variants.

       "May I remind the honourable gentleman that it was the UK that alerted the world to the threat of Omicron.

       "There is no country that is better prepared if you look at how quickly and swiftly the UK reacted, for example, with this international restrictions, the information we shared to the world on vaccines.

       "So I think the honourable gentleman understands those points, I regret the way he's framed his question."

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       It comes after Mr Spellar had stood up and told the House: "Covid is now endemic and variants will probably be returning for years, if not decades.

       "In that case, surely by now, instead of the erratic response we see we should have a well-prepared plan of action and chain of command ready to be activated as soon as a new variant is detected, as well as enough supplies and trained personnel to embrace it.

       "So why does his department seem to be continually surprised by the arrival of variants.

       "Instead of a smooth-running plan, we have chaos and panic."

       Health Secretary went on to inform MPs there were now 4,713 confirmed cases of Omicron in the UK.

       "And the UK Health Security Agency estimates that the current rate of, the current number of daily infections are around 200,000," Mr Javid said.

       "While Omicron represents over 20% of cases in England, we've already seen it rise to over 44% in London and we expect it to become the dominant Covid 19 variant in the capital in the next 48 hours."

       Mr Javid added there are currently 10 confirmed people in England who have been admitted to hospital with Omicron.

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       He said: "It's vital we remember that hospitalisations and deaths lag infections by around two weeks so we can expect those numbers to dramatically increase in the days and weeks that lie ahead.

       "In preparation, the UK's four chief medical officers raised the Covid alert level to four, its second-highest level, this was done over the weekend.

       "And NHS England has just announced that it will return to its highest level of emergency preparedness, level four national incident.

       "This means the NHS response to Omicron will be coordinated as a national effort rather than led by individual trusts."