More stringent restrictions need to be brought in "very soon" in England if ministers want to stop hospital admissions reaching 3,000 a day, the government's scientific advisers say.
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The BBC has seen leaked minutes of a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies held on Thursday.
The document says there are "many uncertainties" about the future path of hospitalisations linked to Omicron.
It comes as the UK's four nations are to hold a Cobra meeting this weekend.
Timing of measures 'crucial'
According to the leaked minutes, the Sage advisers say that without intervention measures beyond the Plan B rules currently in place, modelling indicates that hospital admissions could peak at "at least" 3,000 a day in England.
The number of people requiring treatment in hospital has been rising, with admissions being between 800 and 900 every day in the past week.
The current Plan B rules for England include Covid passes for certain events, face masks in more places and people being urged to work from home if they can.
The other nations of the UK had already brought in similar rules - and Scotland has gone further by asking people to limit social contact to three households at a time in the run-up to Christmas. Wales has also ordered nightclubs to close from 27 December.
The Sage minutes say: "If the aim is to reduce the levels of infection in the population and prevent hospitalisations reaching these levels, more stringent measures would need to be implemented very soon."
The record of the meeting goes on to say that measures equivalent to those in place after Step Two or Step One of the roadmap in England, if enacted early enough, "could substantially reduce the peak in hospital admissions and infections compared with Plan B alone".