There is no need to worry about a summer Covid wave fuelled by a “Delta plus” variant, scientists have said. The Telegraph has more.
Coronavirus cases and hospital admissions are increasing in the U.K. but deaths remain low and experts believe the summer will pass without too many problems.
Omicron has been the dominant variant in the UK since it emerged at the end of last year but the original form has been supplanted by sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5.
There had been worries that a new strain of the Delta variant – called Delta plus – which is more deadly but less transmissible than Omicron, may be gaining traction in the U.K., but experts have allayed those concerns.
Prof Azeem Majeed, chairman of primary care and public health at Imperial College London, told the Telegraph: “For now, variants such as BA.4 and BA.5 are a bigger problem than Delta plus.
“The nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus means that mutations will be common. Fortunately, we now have good systems for identifying and tracking new variants globally.
“The number of reported cases of the Delta plus variant are small in comparison to the Omicron sub-variants that are currently circulating.”
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), told the Telegraph: “It remains difficult to predict exactly what will happen over the summer in the U.K. – we have good levels of immunity across the population, and summer means more outdoor time and less indoor social contact which should both reduce transmission.”
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