UK study reveals high rates of reinfection

Tony Joseph 3 years ago 2 min read

Bloomberg — Nearly two-thirds of participants in a large study of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom who tested positive this month reported having previous infection with the virus, according to researchers.

Another 7.5% said they suspected they had been infected before, according to a React-1 study led by Imperial College London. Researchers analyzed infections in nearly 100,000 volunteers between January 5 and 20.,

According to the study, Omicron became the dominant form in England earlier this month. Infections among research participants rose to about 4.4%, more than three times as of December, High proportion of people reporting previous cases adds to Evidence that Omicron can evade at least some of the defenses resulting from infection with earlier variants,

Deaths and hospitalizations were lower than in previous waves, even though the spread of the virus has reached the highest level since the study began in May 2020. The peak of infection occurred around January 5, before cases declined and then stabilized by the middle of the month.

The UK has eased so-called “Plan B” health restrictions, which were implemented across England in December as the omicron began to spread rapidly among the population. People are no longer required to work from home and rules requiring the use of masks in shops and on public transport will be removed,

“There’s good news in our data, because Infections declined sharply during January, but are still high and have recently reached very high prevalencePaul Elliott, director of the React program at Imperial College School of Public Health.

Children aged five to 11 years had the highest prevalence among all groupsold, with a 7.81% You Infection spiked when they went back to school in January, The researchers also warned that Nearly 12-fold increase in prevalence for people over age 75 The number of hospitalizations may continue to rise.

UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid said it is “reassuring to see COVID-19 infections starting to decline across the country” as restrictions are lifted. He acknowledged that the cases remained high. And urged people to get their booster shots.