A troublesome new Covid variant sweeping Britain could send cases to an all-time high, experts fear.
As many as one in 16 people were infected in London in mid-December – making it England’s worst-hit region in the run-up to Christmas.
Virus rates doubled in less than a fortnight nationally following the sudden arrival of the ‘Juno’ strain.
Warnings that worse was to come were triggered because of the busy festive social calendar, with Brits en masse attending parties and mixing indoors with loved ones.
Now virologists have claimed that January’s freezing temperatures, which has seen snow fall in parts of London, and the return of schools will only add to skyrocketing infection rates.
Exactly how prevalent Covid is currently remains a mystery due to natural delays in surveillance projects, which reflect the spread of the virus a few weeks earlier.
However, it was estimated that 4.3 per cent of people were infected across England on December 13, according to data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and Office for National Statistics (ONS).
For comparison, records show prevalence peaked at 7.6 per cent in the week to April 2, 2022, driven by a surge in Omicron spin-off BA.2 and ministers ditching final Covid restrictions one month earlier.
Although Covid no longer poses the same threat as it did when it burst onto the scene in early 2020, thousands are currently in hospital with the virus every day.
And the uptick comes as NHS facilities are already juggling with a spike in flu and other seasonal bugs.
For example, in the final week of 2023, norovirus and RSV hospitalisations simultaneously hit their highest levels since the pandemic began.
Professor Christina Pagel, a member of Independent SAGE and data scientist at University College London, said that infection levels in January could ‘rival’ previous peaks of infection and ‘might even exceed them’.
She told the i: ‘And BA.2 – England’s largest ever wave in March and April 2022 – peaked four weeks after it reached 50 per cent of cases.
‘So unfortunately it is likely that this JN.1 wave has not yet peaked and will peak mid-January, either next week or the week after.
‘And then infections will stay very high for a few weeks on the downward slope too.
‘I am sure this wave will rival the first two Omicron waves in 2022 and might even exceed them.’
Professor Rowland Kao, of Edinburgh University, told the i that Juno’s high prevalence is set to pile pressure on the NHS.
He urged people to be ‘extra aware’ of their contact with at-risk groups, even if they have had booster jabs.
Estimates of Covid prevalence come from a joint project ran by the UKHSA and ONS.
It swabs a sample of 30,000 people per week to work out how rife the virus is.
The current project, which began in December, took over from another mass testing scheme, which ended in March 2023.
Separate data suggests that Juno, scientifically known as JN.1, now makes up two-thirds of all new cases.
It first started spreading in the UK in October and was spotted by the UKHSA as part of routine horizon scanning — the process of monitoring emerging infections.
The variant was flagged because it contained a rogue mutation in the spike protein known to help the virus dodge the body’s internal defences.
Health experts say this makes it easier for the virus to infect the nose and throat compared to other circulating variants, which the immune system finds easier to fight off due to vaccination and previous infection.
This led the agency to designate the strain an official variant in early December, labelling it V-23DEC-01 — a process that means it is formally being tracked.
There is no evidence to suggest that Juno, as it has since been nicknamed, is more dangerous than previous strains.
Ministers have repeatedly said that they won’t resort to imposing lockdowns unless a doomsday variant appeared due to strong immunity among the population, which has been built up by repeated waves of infection and vaccine rollouts.
However, spikes in Covid cases can cause mass illness across the country, sparking chaos in schools, the health service and public transport.
There are also concerns it will fuel the number struck by long Covid — symptoms of infection that last longer than a month, such as brain fog, tiredness and headaches.
Any surge in Covid infection rates would come at a time when the NHS is already bursting at the seams due to a surge in hospitalisations due to coronavirus, flu, RSV and norovirus.
Latest UKHSA data in the week to December 31 shows Covid hospitalisations rose to 5.2 per 100,000 people in England.
The figure is up 8.3 per cent in a week and more than double the toll logged a month earlier.
However, the toll is a fraction of that logged in the same week in previous years.
The rate was twice as high last year (10.5), more than three-times higher in 2022 (18.8) and four times larger in 2021 (21.4).
This year, rates were highest in the South West (6.48), West Midlands (6) and South East (5.7).
Older age groups, who are known to be most vulnerable to the virus, logged the highest admission rate at 55.1 per 100,000.
UKHSA data also shows that flu admissions are surging.
Hospitalisations hit 6.8 per 100,000 people in England in the week to December 31, up by a third in a week and 10-times higher than one month earlier.
Levels are lower than the same week last year (12.7), which was the worst flu season for a decade as it marked the first winter without Covid restrictions since the pandemic began — allowing influenza to rapidly spread against a background of low immunity.
However, current flu admissions are three-times higher than 2018/19 and a third higher than 2017/18.
Flu hospitalisations were low in 2020/21 and 2021/22 as curbs brought in to slow the spread of the coronavirus also halted the spread of influenza.
Data from the UKHSA also shows that more Brits were hospitalised with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a common bug behind coughs and sneezes, in the final week of the year compared to the same period in any other year since the pandemic began.
There were 2.2 admissions per 100,000 in the week to December 31.
For comparison, the figure is a tenth higher than last year (2) and three-times higher than 2021/22.
Separate NHS England data shows that more beds were taken up due to norovirus at the end of December than any year since Covid took off.
The winter vomiting bug saw 501 beds closed — either occupied by patients or closed for infection control purposes.
The toll is up 18 per cent on 2022, while it is 85 per cent higher than 2021 levels and eight-times higher than 2020.
For most, the stomach bug usually goes away on its own within two to three days. But in severe cases, especially among children and older adults, dehydration can lead to hospitalisations.
As the virus is spread through close contact, it can easily take off among patients hospitalised for other reasons if someone on their ward has the virus.
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, an expert in infection and immunity at the University of Oxford, warned that illness rates will continue to rise throughout January.
Sir Andrew, who is also chair of the Government’s vaccine taskforce, said he expects ‘a rise in infections in the population over the course of the next week’.
He told the Mirror that it is normal for illness rates to drop over the holidays and then bounce back when people return to school and work.
In response to worries that demand on hospitals will spike next week, the NHS is scrambling to boost the number of beds it has available from around 97,600 to 99,000 from January 15.
However, a further spike in hospitalisations due to the viruses will pile further pressure on hospitals in England, which are currently facing the longest strike in history by junior doctors.
The medics walked out last Wednesday and don’t return to work until 7am tomorrow. It is thought the strike will lead to more than 200,000 appointments and operations being called off.
The British Medical Association (BMA), which has coordinated the action, is demanding a 35 per cent pay rise for junior doctors, arguing that their pay has failed to keep up with inflation over the last 15 years.
The medics have already had an 8.8 per cent pay rise, on average, for 2023/24. However, the uplift was higher for first year medics, who were given 10.3 per cent.
Junior doctors in their first year now have a basic pay of £32,300, while those with three years’ experience make £43,900. The most senior earn £63,100.
Last month, officials offered the medics an additional three per cent rise. However, the BMA turned down the offer and pressed ahead with further strike action.
It comes as the Prime Minister today admitted that he has not done enough to bring down the record 7.7million NHS backlog.
Rishi Sunak pledged to reduce the number waiting for care over the course of 2023. However, the toll increased by around 500,000.
Speaking at a PM Connect event in the North West today, he said: ‘We have to be frank. Although we’ve virtually eliminated the people waiting the longest, we haven’t yet made a significant enough dent in the waiting lists.’
He said industrial action was partly to blame.
Mr Sunak said that ‘while we’re waiting to resolve that, we’re getting on doing the things that will strengthen our NHS for the long term’, including training ‘considerably’ more doctors and nurses, and raising ‘our first smoke-free generation to ease those pressures’.
