Good Morning Britain's Dr Hilary Jones has warned that serious cases of covid-19. Asked by Susanna Reid whether we would see hospital admissions and serious illness rise, in line with the rise in cases, Dr Hilary responded: "I think we will, unfortunately.
"We are seeing more admissions. Even though this variant is less likely to cause more serious disease and infection, the sheer numbers of people are double when final restrictions were eased two weeks ago."
The new variant is a subtype of omicron and has been dubbed "stealth omicron". It can infect people who are triple vaccinated.
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Dr Hilary said: "If the cases are mild we can tolerate it but the sheer number will translate to more serious illnesses and death. History shows us the virus will become less lethal as time goes on. Usually, with pandemics, the mutations tend to make the virus less virulent. It is not in the virus' interests to kill us.
"It wants us to spread it around because otherwise it dies with the human host. [But] we can't rest on our laurels and say it fades away and becomes weaker and weaker - there could be a mutation that makes it more virulent..."
Nervtag, the government's new and emerging respiratory virus threats advisory group, has previously warned that "the loss of virulence as viruses evolve is a common misconception", and that "the next [covid] variant to achieve UK/global dominance is likely to have the same pathogenicity [ability to make people ill] as previous variants".
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More than 12,000 people in England are currently in hospital with covid-19 and in the most recent week more than 700 people died with the virus. On Monday this week, 93,269 cases were reported in the UK - the most announced in a single day since February 1.
