British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will review whether it needs to impose its strictest COVID-19 restrictions on more of the country on Wednesday as a highly infectious variant continues to spread but will not change Christmas rules, a minister said.

Britain reported a record number of new infections on Tuesday as a mutated strain of the coronavirus, which could be up to 70% more transmissible than the original, causes the number of cases and hospital admissions to spike. On Saturday, tight social mixing restrictions measures were brought in for London, southeast England and Wales while plans to ease curbs over Christmas across the nation were either dramatically scaled back or scrapped altogether.

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said the government's COVID operations committee chaired by Prime Minister Boris Johnson would meet on Wednesday to decide if further action needed to be taken.

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