Covid ‘will taunt us for years’ UKHSA head warns as Orthrus variant spreads

UKHSA warns of coinciding ‘double flu and double Covid seasons’ in future

Covid will continue to “taunt us” for years to come, a top health official has warned as cases of the Orthrus variant continue to spread.

Jenny Harries, head of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), said that the future of the pandemic is less predictable than it was at the start due to the number of new variants spreading across the globe.

She also indicated that, despite both flu and Covid infections having peaked for a while, the UK could face further waves this year.

Ms Harries urged Britons to “stay alert” over the possibility of flu and Covid coinciding again in the future.

She told The Financial Times: “We may well, or almost certainly will, have more Covid waves going forward. That doesn’t mean people will end up in hospital but we’ll see it epidemiologically. So I think that the real message is this is highly unpredictable.

“At this point in the pandemic it’s far less predictable than it was right at the start in some ways, because we’ve got a flow of new variants coming through that we have to keep monitoring.”

Despite the vaccines “working well” and the agency monitoring any changes in the virus’ “biological structure”, she insisted Covid would not “disappear off the planet”.

“I think it’s probably here to stay to taunt us,” she said, adding that Britain would likely need some kind of vaccination programme in place for “many years to come”.

The latest data from UKHSA showed 28,009 cases in the week to 7 January down 25.8 per cent from 37,757 in the week before, while the number of people in hospital in England with Covid-19 dropped to pre-Christmas levels.

It comes as new figures indicate that the Covid variant Orthrus accounts for around one-quarter of all cases in England.

The sub-lineage of the Omicron variant, known as CH.1.1, is one of the most likely to take over from currently dominant BQ.1, according to the UK Health Security Agency.

Since the first cases of the new variant emerged in November it spread to account for 23.1 per cent of all cases in England by 1 January, the latest UKHSA figures show – though sequencing suggests it could make up as much as 100 per cent in some areas.

The figures for that week suggest Orthrus accounted for around 8,700 cases, though officials warn variant estimates are uncertain.