There have been seven confirmed cases of the Covid Omicron variant in Suffolk with a further 404 suspected cases, public health bosses say.

Suffolk County Council confirmed the cases today and have also said that in the past 10 days 2,252 people aged 19 and under have tested positive for Covid-19.

The first case of the variant was detected in Suffolk between November 25 and December 5.

The council also confirmed that there have been 271 education settings with at least one positive Covid-19 case in the last 10 days.

One Suffolk school has moved its key stage 2 (years 3-6) pupils to home learning to "break the cycle of transmission" so that families do not have to isolate over the Christmas break.

Suffolk Public Health also confirmed two suspected cases of the Omicron variant at the Sybil Andrews Academy and one at Abbots Green Primary School.

The government has also announced its Covid Plan B which will make it mandatory for people who are double jabbed and come into contact with someone who has coronavirus to test daily.

Although people in Suffolk have been unable to order lateral flow tests from the government website due to "exceptionally high demand", the prime minister has insisted there is no shortage of tests.

Speaking when the first case of the Omicron variant was confirmed Stuart Keeble, director of public health at Suffolk County Council said: "This is a new variant and clearly it has got people concerned, but we shouldn’t be panicking.

“The fact is viruses mutate and that is what they do.

“We must not be surprised that we will see the spread of the Omicron variant in Suffolk.

“Transmission will take place, we will have it seeded from people travelling from other countries, and what we will do as a local system is to really focus down on those individual cases, identify contact tracing.

“If we can try to slow down any transmission that gives us as much time to get jabs into people’s arms."