The number of hospital admissions for Covid-19 in England has risen as experts warn the fifth wave of the virus has already started.
Some 7,822 patients in England had Covid-19 on June 27, up 37 per cent on the previous week, NHS figures show.
It is the highest total for nearly two months but is still some way below the peak of 16,600 patients during the Omicron BA.2 wave.
Professor Tim Spector, of the ZOE Covid symptom study app, said: “We’re in a wave at the moment,” he said, “heading towards a quarter of a million cases a day, that’s a wave already.”
The latest figures show 1.7 million people are testing positive across the UK, a 23 per cent increase on the week before.
Scientists believe the dramatic rise in cases is due to new Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 which have mutated further, thus are able to evade immunity more.
