http://www.bbc.com/news/health-61995463
Covid is rising again in the UK - should we worry?
James Gallagher
Health and science correspondent
@JamesTGallagheron Twitter
Published
1 day ago
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Lateral flow test
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You'd be forgiven for letting out a weary sigh. There's so much going on
from Ukraine to the rising cost of everything - and now Covid is rearing
its ugly head again.
The latest statistics show the number of people infected in the UK has
more than doubled since the start of June with around 2.3 million people
testing positive. You probably know someone who's had it.
So is summer ruined? Two-and-a-half years into the pandemic we're back
facing new variants, a surge in infections, questions about whether the
NHS can cope and what it means for all our lives. It's also giving us a
clearer idea of what living with Covid is going to look like.
"We're in a bad patch at the moment," says professor of public health at
the University of Edinburgh Linda Bauld.
"It's very disruptive to society and some are suffering severe effects,
but that's still a tiny proportion of where we were."
Graph
The driving force behind the sudden surge in infections is the double
act of BA.4 and BA.5. These two mutated forms of the virus are
technically sub-variants of Omicron. The original Omicron had an
impressive ability to spread and overcome the immune defences our bodies
have built up to keep the virus out. BA.4 and BA.5 are even better.
Their ascent started before big summer events like the Jubilee
celebrations or Glastonbury so it's not like we've just partied our way
into a new wave.
Prof Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London, says
it's "shocking" how much the virus is able to change to keep on
infecting us. He recalls seeing the first scientific analysis of Omicron
last winter: "I felt like I'd just seen the worst horror film on the
planet and yet it keeps throwing up worse ones".
The result is we're now entering another - arguably our third - Omicron
wave of the year and it's only just July.
Slippery virus
Research in the New England Journal of Medicine showed BA.4 and BA.5 can
"substantially escape" the protection from either vaccination or
infection. A study in Science also showed the original Omicron was like
a "stealth virus" that left limited protection if you came across
Omicron again.
The new sub-variants' slippery skills combined with our waning immunity
means stories of catching Covid multiple times are now increasingly
common. Plus there's still a surprising number - one-in-five of us - who
have somehow dodged Covid throughout the pandemic.
"[This virus] continues to surprise us in unpleasant ways, you would
have hoped there would be more protection from one Omicron variant to
another" says Prof Mark Woolhouse, who studies disease outbreaks at the
University of Edinburgh.
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However, the most important form of protection - against becoming
severely ill, ending up in hospital and dying - is clearly holding up.
If there were 2.3 million cases in the era before vaccines then the NHS
would be swamped and tens of thousands of people would die. That is
clearly not happening.
Jubilee celebrations
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
The upswing in Covid cases started before the Jubilee celebrations
But even with that protection BA.4 and BA.5 still have the potential to
leave you feeling seriously rough.
"I think it's far from a bad cold," says Prof Susan Hopkins, from the UK
Health Security Agency, who says people are "ill for between seven and
10 days".
That has knock-on effects if you need to work - staff sickness in the
NHS is another way the virus can pile pressure on the health service -
or were planning to go on a nice holiday.
"What do you do if your school has no teachers or an airline has no
pilots? How do you suck that up?" asks Prof Altmann.
Rising cases will also have a disproportionate effect on the clinically
vulnerable and leave behind cases of long Covid.
Severity question
There are no signs this virus is any more or less dangerous that
original Omicron, but we don't know for sure.
So far there is only laboratory and animal research. A study in Japan
shows BA.4 and BA.5 can grow more readily in lung cells. Hamsters had
worse disease than with earlier forms of Covid.
The UKHSA has reported a "small" increase in the proportion of those
infected needing hospital treatment since April. But the reason is
unclear and could include waning vaccine protection or a shift in who is
catching the virus.
Prof Woolhouse, who was one of the scientists to show original Omicron
was milder, says "we haven't seen definitive data" on BA.4 or BA.5
because we're not collecting the same volume of information now.
However, variants don't have to be worse for it to impact the NHS - they
just have to infect enough people. Then the small proportion who do get
into trouble still add up to a big number.
The number of people in hospital with Covid across the UK is 10,081 - up
by around 2,500 in a week. More than half of those will be there for
other reasons, such as a broken bone or a stroke, but they still need to
be managed.
Chart showing the number of patients in hospital across the UK with covid
"I remain concerned, one more doubling [in numbers] brings the NHS into
significant challenge," says Prof Hopkins, the chief medical advisor at
the UK Health Security Agency.
The hope will be that the UK follows a similar trajectory to countries
like South Africa and also Portugal.
Prof Bauld: "I think we should be optimistic, in those countries that
are ahead of us, things are settling down, these things do burn
themselves out as they run out of people to infect."
However, it looks as though the idea that Covid will just become a
winter bug is either wrong or someway off.
"Every year we say this and then it causes a wave in the summer, driven
by new variants coming along more than once a year," warns Prof Woolhouse.
The virus may be looking more flu-like in terms of severity, but the
difference at the moment is flu comes only once a year.
There is no political appetite to return to any restrictions. The big
decision is going to be around the vaccination programme ahead of next
winter - who gets vaccinated and equally importantly with what?
Both Pfizer and Moderna have announced updated vaccines that target the
original Omicron, but that is already yesterday's variant.
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