People who do not have health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the coronavirus are now required to pay for tests to find out if they are infected.
The spread of COVID-19 in Britain has reached record levels, with around 1 in 13 people estimated to have been infected with the virus in the past week, the latest figures from Britain’s official statistics agency showed.
The Office for National Statistics said on Friday that some 4.9 million people were estimated to have the coronavirus in the week ending March 26, up from 4.3 million recorded in the previous week, the latest surge driven by the more permeable Omicron version BA.2, . which is predominant across the UK
Hospitalization and death rates are rising again, although the death toll from COVID-19 is still relatively low compared to earlier this year. Nonetheless, the latest estimates suggest that the sharp climb in new infections since late February, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson ended all remaining coronavirus restrictions in England, continued well into March.
The figures came on a day the government ended free rapid COVID-19 testing for most people in England under Johnson’s “Living with COVID” plan. People who do not have health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the coronavirus are now required to pay for tests to find out if they are infected.
Associate Professor Stephen Griffin, from the University of Leeds, said: “The government’s ‘living with Covid’ strategy is nothing more than any mitigation, isolation, free testing and removing a large part of our surveillance, nothing more than ignoring this virus.” Is.” School.
“Such uncontrolled prevalence jeopardizes the safety afforded by our vaccines,” he said. “Our vaccines are excellent, but they are not silver bullets and should not be left to bear the brunt of COVID in isolation.”
More than 67% of people 12 years of age and older in the UK have received a booster or third dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Starting Saturday, parents can also book a low-dose vaccine for children aged 5 to 12 in England.
James Naismith, a professor of biology at the University of Oxford, said he believed most people in the country would be infected with the BA.2 variant by the summer, except for those who are completely shielded or not vulnerable to the virus. are likely to occur.
“It’s literally living infected with the virus,” he said.
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