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The South African doctor who discovered Omicron has reiterated that the new variant only causes ‘mild’ illness, telling the UK: ’There’s no reason you can’t trust us when we say this to you.’

Dr Angelique Coetzee, the head of the South African Medical Association, says she understands the Plan B measures Boris Johnson is introducing – but insists there is ‘no need’ to plunge millions into lockdown again.

It comes as the prime minister kicks the vaccination programme into high gear, promising to offer booster jabs to all adults before the end of the year.

There were 1,239 new Omicron infections confirmed in the UK yesterday – a record daily figure, and almost double the previous high on Saturday.

Speaking to LBC, Dr Coetzee said all experts in South Africa would ‘tell you the same story’. 

She said: ‘This is now our fourth week, there’s no reason you can’t trust us when we say to you “it’s mild disease”.

‘We’re not saying there won’t be sick patients, we’re saying the majority is mild.

‘There is no need to hospitalise any of these mild cases. These patients recover within about five days, whether you are a child or 80 years of age, whether you’ve been vaccinated, this is what we see.

‘This is real life, this is the experience that we are having. Everyone was afraid we might see severe disease two or three weeks later but in primary healthcare, we haven’t seen it.

‘Again, it’s highly contagious – you could have a million cases, you could have even more than that.

‘But the severity of the disease is mild. Our ICU wards are not full. One or two of our hospitals say they’ve seen an increase, but not a lot.’

South Africa has curfew measures and limits on large events in place, but after one month the case rate is already decreasing, Dr Coetzee said.

Her comments come as South Africa daily cases surge to a record high of 37,875 after more than 19,000 positive tests were left unreported due to ‘IT challenges’.

A total of 18,035 new cases have been discovered in the past 24 hours, with 19,840 retrospective cases on top of this due to ‘reporting delays’.

People in England began working from home again on Monday as efforts to stop the spread of Omicron were ramped up.

The UK Covid Alert Level has been raised from three to four while experts have urged the public to cut their social contacts and warned more restrictions may be necessary.

Many NHS appointments will be postponed as medics focus on getting booster jabs in arms over the next two weeks.

Mr Johnson warned last night the new variant could cause ‘very many deaths’ saying Britain ‘must urgently reinforce our wall of vaccine protection’.

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