03/02 – Omicron reinfection rate dwarfs 18 months of Covid

• The Omicron variant has fuelled a surge of reinfections with more people catching Covid for a second time in the past six weeks than in all of the previous 18 months, new figures suggest.
• The Office for National Statistics infection survey, viewed as the best measure of the state of the epidemic, has recorded 764 reinfections since December 20, roughly the point where Omicron became dominant.
• Those cases were from about 28,700 survey participants who had tested positive previously and were therefore at risk of catching the virus for a second time.
• Before the arrival of Omicron, the infection survey had picked up only 586 reinfections, from among about 25,000 people at risk. The estimated rate of reinfections is now 180 cases per 100,000 people at risk per day. Before Omicron it was less than 12 cases.

Source: ONS

 

 

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