The chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, Dame Henny Harries, has warned Covid-19 infections are at "a very high level" but are not translation into hospital admission and deaths. She appeared on BBC Radio 4' Today program to warn of the increasing levels of infections of the virus all across the UK.
She said: “There are around three-and-a-half million people in the last week up to that point, up to March 25, which is a very high level. But what we’re not seeing of course is a significant translation of that into serious illness, hospitalisations and most importantly, deaths.
"There has been a small uptick in deaths in the last week and again… some hospitals are coming under significant pressure and we shouldn’t underestimate that. But overall, immune defences through the vaccination programme has been really successful and of course we now have treatments."
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It comes as the new Omicron variant continues to crash through the UK which has led to experts predicting a "signicat wave" of infection in England. Professor Sir Chris Whitty says he expects the BA.2 variant to reappear over autumn and winter unless a new Covid variant takes its place, Wales Online reports.
Speaking at the Science of Covid conference, hosted by the Royal Society, he said: “Now we’re definitely not out of the woods. Even without a new variant we’re going to see quite a significant wave of BA.2, which I don’t think has topped out in England yet, it probably has in Scotland.
“But I’m sure it’ll run again, particularly when we get to autumn/winter, unless something else has come along. There will be multiple new variants and we may well get ones that are significantly vaccine-escaping, in which case, we’re in a very different place.”
Cases in England nearly reached a record high on Friday, with around one in 16 people in private households in England – or 3.5 million people – likely to have had Covid-19 in the week to March 19. This is up from one in 20, or 2.7 million people, in the previous week and is the third week in a row that infections are estimated to have risen.
Asked if it is the right time to end free Covid testing, UKHSA chief Dame Jenny Harries said the UK must come to terms with the pandemic remaining unpredictable. She said: “The pandemic takes its own course and it will remain unpredictable to a large extent for the next say 18 months to two years, I think is general consensus, and we will have to continuously be alert to monitor those rates and to respond appropriately to any new variants.
“But as with other respiratory viruses such as flu… at some point we have to come to terms with that”.
She also stated that people should continue to take Covid-sage precautions such as wearing a mask in shops and on public transport. She noted that warmer weather will likely drive down infection rates as well as a high immunity in the population which will only continue if people keep coming forward to receive their booster jabs.
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