BBC
Covid infections are continuing to rise in the UK, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.
The data suggests about 1.7 million people were estimated to have Covid in the week ending 18 June.
This is about one in 35 people – an increase of 23% on the week before.
Experts say two new fast-spreading subvariants of Omicron – called BA.4 and BA.5 – are likely to be driving new infections.
BA.4 and BA.5 now make up more than half of new Covid infections in England, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) says.
UKHSA officials expect more people to test positive in the next few weeks.
People can catch the newer variants even if they have had coronavirus recently.
But BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron are not thought to be any more lethal than other types of Covid. Vaccines are still saving lives. Most people will not be very ill with Covid.
Van-Tam: I don’t wear a face mask any more
‘Frame the risks’
Prof Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, who until recently was England’s deputy chief medical officer, told the BBC the country was in a different situation from the peaks in infections earlier in the year.
He said: “I don’t wear a face covering, but if there were circumstances where I felt it was a really closed environment, with very high crowding and very intense social interaction, then those are the situations where I might think ‘should I or shouldn’t I?’.
“And I think people have got to learn to frame those risks for themselves.”
The professor. who is now pro-vice-chancellor at the University of Nottingham’s faculty of medicine and health sciences, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it was time to start reassessing how we think about Covid, thanks to the success of vaccines…
