Scientists in Britain have warned of another fresh Covid wave as the United Kingdom logged over 15,800 new cases on Tuesday. Last week, British health officials also expressed concerns that there were “early signs the country could be at the start of a new wave of infections driven by Omicron variants.”
The new BA.4 and BA.5 strains of the Omicron variant are said to be closer to the earlier, ‘more dangerous’ Alpha and Delta variants as against the highly transmissible but milder Omicron, as per the media reports.
Although hospitalisation rates have so far remained “very low,” UK’s fresh infections have been hovering above the 10,000-mark since June 12. In the week ending June 19, the UK recorded a 43 per cent increase in its fresh cases.
In a period of ten days (from June 12 to 21), the UK has recorded over 1.24 lakh new infections. The number of new cases globally went down by 3 percent as per World Health Organisation.
“There were 3.3 million new Covid-19 infections last week, marking a 4 percent decrease, with more than 7,500 deaths. But cases jumped by about 6 per cent in Europe,” the global health body was quoted as saying.
The country dropped nearly all of its Covid restrictions months ago. Apart from the Omicron variant that took hold of the UK towards the end of 2021, the experts are also attributing the spike to street parties, concerts and other festivities celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee earlier this month.
