England is building temporary hospitals to help cope with rising coronavirus cases, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a stark warning to those not fully vaccinated.

The new “surge hubs” would deal with a potential overspill of inpatients as surging virus cases put the country's health service on a “war footing”, according to officials.

Fuelled by the highly contagious Omicron variant, daily cases have ballooned, standing at more than 189,000 on Thursday, AFP reported.

“Given the high level of Covid-19 infections and increasing hospital admissions, the NHS is now on a war footing,” National Medical Director Stephen Powis said.