A JOURNALIST may face legal action after being accused of an "attempt to discredit" a doctor for her opinion on the UK Government's response to Omicron.

Julia Hartley-Brewer, a presenter on the radio station talkRADIO, shared a clip of Dr Julia Grace Paterson criticising the UK Government's messaging around restrictions to stop the spread of coronavirus.

In the clip, Dr Patterson says that Covid "restrictions" should be framed as "public health measures" which are going to help people.

She continued: "We are at a really precarious point in the pandemic and this government has chosen not to act early with the Omicron variant.

"We now face a situation where before Christmas there was 122,000 cases in just one day in the UK, we haven't had any data over the last couple of days, but what we're hearing from NHS staff is that the service is under enormous pressure."

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She added: "There seems to be a reticence to listen to experts which is deeply concerning. We've seen this so many times before now. It's understandable that the public aren't aware of all of this because the government hasn't been putting the science front and centre in their response to Omicron."

Hartley-Brewer shared the clip on Twitter, adding: "In unrelated news, Dr Julia Patterson sells face masks at a huge profit on her website."

The talkRADIO presenter has more than 350,000 followers on Twitter and has been vocally opposed to any new measures being brought in to prevent Covid-19 from spreading throughout the pandemic.

Dr Patterson founded a non-profit campaign group called EveryDoctor which advocates on behalf of the NHS, the people that work in the service and the patients that it serves.

The EveryDoctor website sells a range of products including face masks with sales helping to fund their work and stating that any profits are donated to charity.

Dr Patterson highlighted that she had been called a "psychopath" on Twitter for the interview on Sky News and said that doctors are "absorbing waves of abuse daily for speaking up for patients".

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Following Hartley-Brewer's tweet, Dr Patterson - who said she blocked the journalist earlier that day - informed her that she does not profit from sales of the masks and said she would be "speaking to the barrister on our team about Julia Hartley-Brewer’s tweets".

Earlier today (December 28), Dr Patterson shared an example of abuse she had received since her interview, saying: "High profile science-deniers/ anti-maskers tweet abuse about doctors and scientists, which directs their followers to troll us too. Julia Hartley-Brewer and others target doctors, and this is the result."

Later, Dr Patterson tweeted: "I haven’t yet received an apology from Julia Hartley-Brewer for attempting to discredit me by spreading false information about me to her followers.

"I am in discussion with the brilliant barrister on our team about our next steps. We are taking this extremely seriously."

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It was announced on Monday that there will be no more restrictions brought in to stop the spread of Omicron in England before the end of the year.

Instead, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said that people should "remain cautious" and urged them to test themselves for Covid before joining celebrations for the new year.

In Scotland, people are being urged to limit social contacts and keep gatherings to three households as provisional data showed that the three highest ever daily Covid case totals had been recorded between December 24 and 27.

There are also restrictions in hospitality and leisure settings with social distancing and table service back, while large events cannot go ahead and nightclubs cannot operate.

Similar measures have also been brought in for Wales and Northern Ireland.