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Ontario is expanding eligibility for COVID-19 booster shots to anyone 18 and older starting Monday and is limiting capacity in some indoor spaces as cases of the Omicron variant surge in the province.

The government also announced Wednesday it’s shortening the required interval between a person’s second dose and booster shot from six months down to three months.

Starting Dec. 18, Ontario will reintroduce capacity limits of 50 per cent for indoor entertainment venues, meeting and event spaces, and sports venues with an indoor capacity of greater than 1,000 people.

Britain is being hit by “two epidemics on top of each other” and big rise in hospitalisations is “a nailed-on prospect”, Chris Whitty has warned as the UK recorded its largest number of daily cases since the start of the pandemic.

Amid surging Omicron cases, the chief medical officer advised the public to ensure they could spend Christmas with friends and family by “de-prioritising” other social contact – suggesting this may include work parties.

It came as 78,610 new Covid infections were reported on Wednesday – the highest since 8 January this year. Whitty admitted that “records will be broken a lot over the next few weeks as the rates continue to go up”.

Speaking briefly to reporters before an announcement on travel restrictions expected later today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canadians need to be prudent when making plans for the holidays.

“Canadians have been attentive [to COVID-19] for months and months. We’ve seen that people know how to do the right thing. They’re going to have to be vigilant and make careful decisions about Christmas,” Trudeau said in French before the start of a Liberal caucus meeting this morning.

Most provinces off to a painfully slow start giving third doses of the vaccine, and one expert warns that new variant will make things ‘pretty ugly’

Dr. Andrew Morris isn’t surprised by the surge in COVID cases across the country, up from an average of 2,500 a day a month ago to 4,100 on Dec. 13. “I’ve been saying for a long, long time that we would be getting into this situation,” says the Toronto-based infectious disease specialist, “and there is no plausible situation where we will not have the same experience as Europe.”

Morris, who is medical director of the Sinai Health System-University Health Network Antimicrobial Stewardship Program, is referring to soaring case counts on the continent a few months ago. In Canada, he says, “we’ve been fooling ourselves to think we could avoid this, and it’s been put on steroids because of Omicron.”

Police in Germany’s eastern state of Saxony have launched a series of raids after death threats were made against Premier Michael Kretschmer for backing coronavirus measures.

Far-right anti-vaccination activists are suspected of plotting violence with crossbows or other “piercing weapons”.

Saxony has the lowest Covid vaccine take-up in Germany.

Last year Mr Kretschmer warned of Covid “hysteria” but he later apologised and has since backed strict measures.

OTTAWA — The Federal Court is scheduled to hear arguments today from four Canadian Armed Forces members facing disciplinary action for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Chief of the defence Gen. Wayne Eyre ordered all Armed Forces members to be vaccinated by the end of November or face remedial measures, including possible dismissal from the military. That deadline has since been extended to Dec. 18.