Reported infections are heading up again in the U.K. After two successive waves associated with each of Omicron BA.1 and BA.2, this one is associated with BA.4 and BA.5. The ONS infection survey shows a small rise in the week ending June 2nd.
The reported infection data in the last week bears out that this trend is continuing.
ONS variant data show the rise is being driven by some combination of Omicron BA.4 and BA.5, the new subvariants first detected in South Africa. Data on CoVariants suggest BA.5 is likely to be the more dominant.
The rise is across most age groups and regions.
Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 were very undeadly in South Africa but BA.4 appears to be causing a new wave of Covid deaths in Portugal.
This is interesting as Portugal is much more highly vaccinated than South Africa.
Whatever happens in the U.K., let’s hope that the days of panic and aping authoritarian China are behind us.
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