Dr Jenny Harris, the chief executive of the UK’s Health Security Agency, told the BBC’s Sunday Morning program that hospital cases of Covid are expected to increase in the coming weeks, with admissions likely to exceed the April peak due to the BA sub-variant .2 Small. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that Covid infections in the UK rose by more than half a million in a week at the end of June in the latest wave caused by even more contagious variants of Omicron known as BA.4 and BA. 5. “It doesn’t look like this wave is over yet, so we would expect hospital cases to increase. And it is possible, very likely, that they will actually peak in the previous BA.2 wave,” Harris said. “But I think the total impact we won’t know. It’s easy to say in hindsight, not so easy to model.” At its peak in April, the BA.2 wave in England hospitalized more than 2,000 people a day, making it more dangerous than the first Omicron wave in January. The deadliest wave of the pandemic so far came in January 2021, when the Alpha variant pushed daily hospitalizations in England above 4,000 in the first weeks of the vaccination programme. Harris’ comments prompted a warning from NHS chiefs about the pressures hospitals will face as the number of Covid patients rises ahead of a further wave expected in the autumn and what health officials fear could be a bad and early flu season. “Trust leaders know they are in for a tough ride in the coming months as they deal with new and unpredictable variants of Covid-19 alongside dealing with the pressures of seasonal flu which may hit us earlier than usual this year,” said Saffron Cordery, the interim chief. executive of NHS providers. “The politics of living with Covid does not mean that Covid has disappeared. The latest data shows we can’t afford to be complacent, with small but alarming increases in the past week in the number of patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19 and those requiring ventilators. Warnings from Dr Jenny Harris today that community infection rates and hospital admissions are expected to rise further are worrying.’ Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Cordery added: “The waves of Covid-19 and flu will put additional pressure on stretched NHS staff and services and their efforts to tackle waiting lists, deliver efficiencies and transform the NHS, as well as hard-pressed our colleagues in social care”. An estimated 2.3 million people in private households across the UK had Covid in the week ending June 24, a 32% increase on the previous week, according to the ONS. The number suggests that infections are at their highest level since late April, though somewhat below the record 4.9 million infections during the BA.2 wave at the end of March. Harris said the surge in hospitalizations for Covid, despite vaccines and antivirals, would affect other work in health services. “We’re not just worried about Covid, it’s actually our ability to treat other diseases as well,” he said. He encouraged people to “go about their normal lives, but in this precautionary way,” emphasizing hand washing, social distancing where possible and face coverings in poorly ventilated enclosed spaces. Wearing masks, he said: “If I have some respiratory infection, it’s a good thing to do and I think it’s a new lesson for the country.”
