I am sure the people my right hon. Friend is referring to will have heard him loud and clear. We all enjoy socialising but, as he will appreciate, we are in a difficult situation. However, we also have personal responsibility.
We are confronted with an emerging threat, which is familiar but not yet well known. The measures that we are putting in place are proportionate, precautionary and balanced, and are being made in response to the specific threat.
Late last week, the challenge arising from the latest covid-19 threat from the variant of concern known as omicron emerged. Public health officials in South Africa shared information on the omicron variant and it was identified as a coronavirus variant of concern. Thanks to our world-leading genomic sequencing experts at the UK Health Security Agency, we were able to identify that some cases of the new variant are present in this country. So far, we have identified 14 cases in the UK and, unfortunately, we expect to find more in the coming days.