🔴 Covid cases are rising again, but widespread immunity will let Christmas parties go ahead
Covid cases are starting to rise again but look unlikely to shoot up between now and Christmas as the population has built up considerable immunity, according to the head of theHowever, a clearer picture of the prospects for the coming weeks will emerge in a few days as the impact onCases may accelerate more rapidly in the new year as new variants gain dominance and prolonged indoor Christmas socialising spreads the virus, Tim Spector, the King’s College London professor who runs the app,...
But while this level is quite high it seems unlikely that it will go up much in the next few weeks at least, Professor Spector said. Professor Spector says it is likely that we could see a new dominant variant emerging early next year which could overcome much of the immunity that has been built against the current dominant variant, BA.5.“That’s the prediction, due to Christmas mixing and probably getting a new variant that will attack people who have been infected before. They haven’t fought it out amongst themselves yet to know who is the winner,” he said.
However, there are several much rarer emerging variants, which could potentially grow rapidly and overtake it – but it is just too early to predict, experts say. “The biggest fear is that something’s going to come from the leftfield as the existing variants and subvariants look to outcompete each other: a new non-omicron variant that is even better adapted to infection and to immune evasion would be very bad news.”
At that point, about five per cent of the UK population will be infected, he predicts – compared to about 5.5 per cent during the current record, set in July.
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