Two-thirds of Omicron cases in UK reinfections

London: Nearly two-thirds of people in England who tested positive for Covid-19 in January previously had the virus or suspected they had it, a large long-running infection survey revealed on Wednesday.

The finding, in the latest report on coronavirus transmission by Imperial College London, is seen as further evidence of the Omicron variant’s ability to dodge the immune systems of those previously infected with the virus.

As part of its regular assessment, Imperial received around 100,000 valid swap tests self-administered by a random sample of people across England between January 5 and 20. Approximately 4,000 showed a positive result, and nearly 3,600 of those individuals specified whether or not they had had Covid before.

Around 65 percent of those respondents had previously tested positive, while a further 7.5 percent said they suspected they had caught the virus previously but had not received a confirmatory test.

"Past infection was associated with high risk of reinfection with Omicron," the study’s authors noted in its abstract. However Paul Elliott, who directs the Imperial study, noted not all these cases could be confirmed as reinfections because some could be residual illness, meaning a person had tested positive twice for the same infection.

But the numbers reporting reinfections in the study are markedly higher than those published by the UK Health Security Agency, a public health protection body. Its latest figures show 11 percent of all English cases were reinfections. The UKHSA said on Wednesday it would begin including reinfections data on the government’s rolling coronavirus data dashboard from the end of the month.

A reinfection is defined as a person testing positive twice at least 90 days apart. The Imperial survey also confirmed Omicron, which has swept the UK since late November, is now responsible for nearly all new infections in England.

Positive cases among its randomly selected sample were three times higher in the January sampling period than the previous month, it found. "We observed unprecedented levels of infection with SARS-CoV-2 in England in January 2022 and almost complete replacement of Delta by Omicron," the report said.

However, the study detected that the prevalence of the virus among adults was starting to decline. England on Thursday will lift the last of various virus curbs reimposed last month as Omicron surged nationwide, including the requirement to wear masks in most settings.

A so-called Covid pass system for nightclubs will also be scrapped, as the country returns to its lowest level of restrictions of any stage of the pandemic.Meanwhile, the risk level related to the Omicron variant remains very high, the WHO said on Wednesday, with the numbers of new Covid-19 cases hitting another record high last week.

"Over 21 million new cases were reported, representing the highest number of weekly cases recorded since the beginning of the pandemic," the World Health Organisation said in its weekly epidemiological coronavirus update.

The UN health agency said the number of new infections increased by five percent in the week to Sunday -- compared to the 20 percent rise registered the week before. "A slower increase in case incidence was observed at the global level," the WHO said.

Nearly 50,000 new deaths were also reported, it added -- a similar figure to the week before. The report said Omicron continued to increase its dominance globally over the other variants of concern.

"The current global epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 is characterised by the dominance of the Omicron variant on a global scale, continued decline in the prevalence of the Delta variant, and very low-level circulation of Alpha, Beta and Gamma variants," the WHO said.

"Countries that experienced a rapid rise in Omicron cases in November and December 2021 have been or are beginning to see declines in cases. However, "based on the currently available evidence, the overall risk related to the Omicron variant remains very high".

The WHO said that of samples collected in the last 30 days that have been sequenced and uploaded to the GISAID global science initiative, Omicron accounted for 89.1 percent. Delta -- previously the world’s dominant variant -- now makes up 10.7 percent.

Meantime, a coronavirus-hit Australian warship docked in Tonga on Wednesday, delivering desperately needed aid to the volcano-and-tsunami-struck nation under strict "no-contact" protocols.