The United Kingdom reported 183,037 new SARS CoV-2 infections on Wednesday, the largest single-day spike. The country’s record daily increase was around 50,000 previously and the Wednesday increase has marked an almost four-time jump in new cases reported in a day. Other countries in Europe such as France, Italy and Greece also reported record daily highs in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has cautioned that the risk posed by the Omicron variant is still “very high”, after COVID-19 case numbers shot up by 11 percent globally last week. Omicron is behind the rapid virus spikes, the WHO said in its COVID weekly epidemiological update on Wednesday. The new ‘variant of concern’ has already overtaken the previously dominant Delta variant in several nations, including the United Kingdom and the United States, said WHO.