Covid live: 633 new Omicron cases detected in UK with overall daily infections at 54,073

UK health officials urge those eligible to get third vaccine dose; Taiwan and Mauritius detect first cases of new variant

What's the truth about lockdown-busting parties at No 10? Don't ask Shagatha Christie, writes Marina Hyde in her column this week.

Here are some extracts:

There was simply no other place a Johnson government would ever end up but mired in rampant lies, chaos, negligence, financial sponging and the live evisceration of public service. To the Conservatives and media outriders somehow only now discovering this about their guy, I think we have to say: you ordered this. Now eat it.

Regrettably, though, space constraints must end our recap of the week here. But on it all goes, as Omicron closes in. We'll play out with a reminder that in a pandemic that has so far killed 146,000 of the Britons who these people are supposed to be in politics to serve, the absolutely vital public health message has now TWICE been most fatally undermined by people who worked at the very heart of No 10 with Boris Johnson. That is absolutely a disgrace, and absolutely not a coincidence.