At least 10 people are now in hospital after being infected with the Omicron variant of Covid, but there have not yet been any confirmed deaths.
He said he is not able to confirm any deaths in England from Omicron to date but stressed that a delay between infection, admission to hospital and death should be expected.
Asked how many people are in hospital with the new variant, Mr Javid told Sky News: ‘In England, there’s about 10 people that are confirmed, in England, with Omicron.’
He added: ‘At this point in time I can’t confirm a death.’
But he said: ‘There is always a lag between infection and then hospitalisation and then, sadly, death.’
Mr Javid did not say what the vaccination status of the 10 people being treated in hospital was or whether they had underlying health conditions which would make them more susceptible to serious disease.
The variant first discovered in South Africa last month is now spreading at a ‘phenomenal rate’ in the UK, Mr Javid cautioned.
He said it was probably now behind around 40% of infections in London and that unless the government acted then the health service could be overwhelmed.
‘What we now know about Omicron is that…it’s spreading at a phenomenal rate, something that we’ve never seen before, it’s doubling every two to three days in infections,’ Mr Javid said.
‘That means we’re facing a tidal wave of infection, we’re once again in a race between the vaccine and the virus.’
He was speaking on the day new rules came into place in England, including orders to work from home if possible.
Yesterday Boris Johnson announced that everyone would be offered a booster jab before the end of the year but his Government are under pressure to go further still and introduce more restrictions.
Mr Javid said he could ‘offer no guarantees’ that schools would not have to close again if the rate of infection continues to sky rocket.
Asked on LBC whether this remained a possibility, Mr Javid said: ‘Well, I don’t want to see that or any of these kinds of measures. I’m just going to focus on everything else we need to be doing, especially the booster programme.’
He added: ‘I’d say this… if you are asking me for guarantees, I will just say – as the Health Secretary, of course, I’m not the Education Secretary – as the Health Secretary, that there are, when it comes to our fight against this pandemic, there are no guarantees.
MORE : NHS to postpone appointments to meet target of 1,000,000 jabs a day
MORE : New rules for Covid contacts kick in on Tuesday meaning daily tests for many
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