LONDON (CU)_Over the recent weeks, a massive spike in COVID-19 infections in China has been making headlines across the globe, as new cases reached a two-year high in mid-March. Beijing announced its biggest city-wide lockdown in Shanghai, the city of some 25 million people, where healthcare workers were battling a new wave of infection triggered by omicron subvariant BA.2. The new subvariant is also driving a new wave of COVID-19 infections elsewhere, raising concern among many countries who were just beginning to recover from the pandemic.
Last month, Coronavirus infections in England more than doubled from the previous month, reaching its highest level since the pandemic began two years ago. The new BA.2 is reportedly behind the new outbreaks, as experts warn that immunity is waning among older adults in the country. The latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that about one in every 13 people in the UK has COVID-19, with a total of about 4.9 million people having contracted the virus.
BA.2 has been identified as a more-transmissible version of omicron, and has become a dominant strain in England, accounting for about 90 per cent of positive samples in the country. According to experts, higher infections may lead to an increase in hospitalisations, despite higher levels of vaccination against COVID-19 among the population. Meanwhile, the number of cases among adults over 55 years have seen a major spike as a result of higher mobility and waning immunity, given the fact that they received their booster shots earlier than other age groups, according to a study.
On the other hand, researchers at the Imperial College in London warn that detecting emerging variants will become more difficult, as the government scales back testing. “There are a lot of variants out there and it’s looking at the patterns that helps to identify variants of concerns and make sure that people see what’s coming,” Christl Donnelly, a professor of statistical epidemiology at Imperial, said.
