Britain reports record COVID-19 prevalence as Omicron surges

Britain on Wednesday reported record COVID-19 prevalence for the last week of 2021, with one in 15 people in England infected, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson said cases were increasing at the fastest rate ever. The increasing number of cases has put huge strains on public services such as hospitals, which face staff shortages and growing admissions. Johnson has resisted imposing stringent lockdown measures in England. Instead, he has bet that a vaccine booster drive and caution among the population will be enough to constrain the latest wave of infections, despite the arrival of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.