A Covid expert says children are driving an 'uptick' in Covid cases that is contributing to a 'rapidly changing' national picture when it comes to the Omicron variant.
UK epidemiologist and professor Tim Spector was speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Monday (January 24) about how his optimism from a couple of weeks ago has been challenged.
Prof Spector is the co-creator of the ZOE Covid Symptom App and said his optimism was based on how the app had shown a peak of around 210,000 cases a day based on lateral flow and PCR tests combined before dropping to around half of that.
He told the BBC: "But it's being going up for the last 10 days and it was driven by children..... and children tend to drive what then happens in their parents and adults.
"So, unfortunately, all the good news we were having is tempered by the fact, particularly in the south of England, in London, South-East, South-West, we're seeing a definite uptick in cases."
And he added it is a "bit premature to start celebrating like we did with Delta that we got rid of this."
Prof Spector's comments came as the World Health Organisation said Covid-19 should not be likened to the flu.
The global health body said that governments around the world “should not suggest to people that the data have suddenly changed, or the virus has suddenly got incredibly weak”.
Dr David Nabarro, the WHO’s special envoy for Covid-19, said that the “end was in sight” but said that Europe was only “passing the halfway mark in a marathon”.
Asked about remarks that Covid-19 should be treated like the flu, Dr Nabarro told Sky News: “I keep wondering what the people who make these amazing predictions know that I and my colleagues in the World Health Organisation don’t know.
“You see, what people are seeing from around the world and reporting to the WHO is this is still a very, very dangerous virus, especially for people who have not been vaccinated and who’ve not been exposed to it before.
“It can also mutate and form variants and we’ve seen several but we know there are more not far away.
“So quite honestly, we are not saying that this should be considered to be like flu or indeed like anything else.
“It’s a new virus, and we must go on treating it as though it is full of surprises, very nasty and rather cunning.”
