Guess who’s back: a new wave of Covid appears to be on its way
(Picture: Ben Turner)With the “best summer ever” well under way — Glastonbury’s back, Wimbledon’s back, masks are off! — it feels anathema to most of us to even acknowledge the fragile ground we might be on when it comes to the pandemic. In fact, due to two “immune-escaping” variants of Omicron, the population’s waning protection from the virus, and our super-sociable summer so far, the UK is in the midst of a big surge in infections.
Cases are the highest they have been since April with a total of 2.3 million people estimated to have had the virus last week — up 32 per cent from the week before. While it’s not as high as the 4.9 million seen at the peak of the Omicron BA.2 wave at the end of March, it does mean that an estimated 3.35 per cent of the population has Covid. That figure was 0.1 per cent in the summer of 2020.
