Boris Johnson will hold a Downing Street press conference on Wednesday at 6pm, amid expectations he will move to impose Plan B Covid rules.
The prime minister will be joined by chief medical officer Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance.
It comes as Johnson is engulfed in a row over accusations No.10 staff held a party last year which broke the lockdown restrictions in place at the time.
Such is the anger, one Tory MP publicly accused Johnson of tightening Covid restrictions as a “diversionary tactic”.
Allegra Stratton, Johnson’s former press secretary, resigned from her job as Cop26 spokesperson earlier on Wednesday after footage showed her joking about the party.
New rules designed to slow the spread of the the Omicron variant could include working from home guidance and the introduction of mandatory vaccine passports for larger events and nightclubs.
Speaking during PMQs on Wednesday Johnson said he was “furious” at footage that showed Downing Street aides joking about the party and said he had ordered an investigation.
But Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said the public would think the prime minister was “taking them for fools”.
Sir Charles Walker, a former vice-chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, told Times Radio the government would likely to now find it “almost impossible” to introduce “very proscriptive” Covid restrictions due to the saga.
William Wragg, the Tory MP for Hazel Grove, told Johnson in the Commons: “Covid passes will not increase uptake of the vaccine but will create a segregated society. Is the prime minister aware that very few will be convinced by this diversionary tactic?”
Any decision to bring in stricter Covid rules comes after Johnson told the Cabinet on Tuesday that omicron variant was “more transmissible” than the Delta strain.
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