Dominic Raab repeatedly gets number of omicron patients in hospital wrong

Dominic Raab sparked confusion over the number of Britons suffering seriously from the omicron variant after he wrongly stated that the hospitalisations had shot up to 250.

The cabinet minister initially told Sky News that the number of people now in hospital with the variant was 250. “Last I saw it was in the low hundreds – 250 the last time I looked.”

However, Mr Raab then revised his figure down from 250 to nine when he appeared on BBC Breakfast. “I know we’ve had one death – I think we’ve got nine people who are in hospital with [omicron].”