There has been a record further 119,789 Covid cases recorded in the UK in the past 24 hours. The figure tops the previous highest of 106,122 covid cases recorded yesterday – which surpassed the previous high of 93,045 recorded on 17 December. The record case numbers come after health secretary Sajid Javid said today the Government will not be making any announcements about future Covid restrictions in England before Christmas. Javid said: “We are not planning any further announcements this week. Despite the caution that we are all taking, people should enjoy their Christmases with their families and their friends – of course, remain cautious. “We will keep the situation under review. We are learning more all the time as we have done from this new data … and if we need to do anything more we will, but nothing more is going to happen before Christmas.” The health secretary also discussed two reports published this week, which found people infected with Omicron are at less risk of being hospitalised than people infected with the Delta, the last dominant variant before Omicros. He said the studies were “of course good, encouraging news” – but said the studies were “not very clear yet … by how much that risk is reduced”. Mr Javid continued: “We do know with Omicron that it does spread a lot more quickly, it is a lot more infectious than Delta, so any advantage gained from reduced risk of hospitalisation needs to be set against that. If a much smaller percentage of people are at risk of hospitalisation, if that is a smaller percentage of a much larger number, there could still be significant hospitalisation.” Mr Javid comments come after Boris Johnson promised on Tuesday there would not be any further measures before the festive day and stressed restrictions were being continuously reviewed. According to Office for Nation Statistics figures published today, there has been a record number of UK Covid cases recorded in a single week – after 1 in 45 people in the UK were found to have contracted the virus in the week ending December 16. There was also believed to be a record 1.4 million recorded in the same period – the highest number since comparable figures began in autumn 2020.