About 4.9 million people are estimated to have had the coronavirus in the week ended March 26, up from 4.3 million recorded last week, the Bureau of Statistics said on Friday. which is the dominant variant throughout the United Kingdom
Hospital admissions and death rates are rising again, although the number of people dying from COVID-19 is still relatively low compared to earlier this year. However, the latest estimates show that the sharp rise in new infections since the end of February, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson lifted all remaining coronavirus restrictions in England, continued in March.
The data came the day the government ended free COVID-19 rapid tests for most people in England as part of Johnson’s “living with COVID-19” plan. People who do not have health conditions that make them more vulnerable to coronavirus should now have to pay for tests to find out if they are infected.
“The government’s strategy of ‘living with COVID’ to remove mitigation, isolation, free trials and a significant portion of our surveillance is tantamount to ignoring this virus in the future,” said Stephen Griffin, deputy director. Professor of Medicine at the University of Leeds. school.
“Such uncontrolled prevalence jeopardizes the protection provided by our vaccines,” he said. “Our vaccines are excellent, but they are not silver bullets and we must not let them carry the weight of COVID in isolation.”
More than 67% of people aged 12 and over in the UK have received the booster or third dose of the coronavirus vaccine. From Saturday parents can also book a low-dose vaccine for children between 5 and 12 years old in England.
James Naismith, a professor of biology at Oxford University, said he believed that in addition to those who are fully protected or not susceptible to the virus, most people in the country are likely to be infected with the BA.2 variant by the summer.
“This is literally living with the virus, being infected with it,” he said.
