LONDON: The UK on Friday announced a new record number of virus cases fulled by the Omicron variant. The government reported 122,186 new cases in the last 24 hours, more than 2,000 higher than Thursday’s figure. The UK is among the worst hit countries in Europe with a virus death toll of 147,857. Case numbers surged 48 percent over the last 7 days, as compared to the previous week, while hospitalisations and death figures have risen much less sharply.