Boris Johnson is reportedly gearing up to announce a new work from home mandate this week, in a bid to curb the omicron coronavirus variant.
The prime minister could announce fresh restrictions as soon as this evening, amid reports that he is now in favour of the government’s so-called Plan B rules, which include mandatory face masks and vaccine passports.
Multiple Whitehall sources told the Financial Times that the PM hopes to use fresh rules to respond to increasing cases of the new variant.
This comes after top scientists estimated that there are thousands of omicron cases in the UK already, despite official numbers still being in their hundreds on 7 December.
Omicron is thought to be the most transmissible strain of the virus yet. Johnson said at prime minister’s questions this afternoon that it was infecting people at a “much faster” rate than previous iterations of the virus.
Ministers on the Covid-19 operations committee are believed to have met today (8 December) to decide which exact measures should be brought in.
The move would come as a knock to the UK’s real estate sector – in particular the office market, which has only returned to pre-pandemic levels of activity in recent months.
Office agents have been vocal about the need for companies and their workers to return to their desks, after the leasing and investment markets took longer to bounce back over the course of 2021 than initially hoped.
Meanwhile, the prospect of tighter restrictions pushed sterling 0.4% lower to $1.318 this morning – its weakest level of the year against the dollar.
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