Almost three million individuals throughout the UK examined optimistic for COVID in late December, the best quantity since July.
The rise in infections comes because the UK faces its worst flu season for a decade and prolonged queues exterior A&Es attributable to ambulance handover delays.
One in 20 individuals in England are prone to have had COVID over the Christmas interval, the Office for National Statistics mentioned, with one in 18 contaminated in Wales and one in 25 testing optimistic in Scotland.
In Northern Ireland, one in 16 are estimated to have had COVID throughout the festive season, a nine-month excessive.
The COVID dying charge stays low as a consequence of widespread immunity and a excessive degree of vaccinations, though extra deaths within the run-up to Christmas had been a fifth greater than the five-year common.
No new variant is believed to have fuelled the uptick in infections, with specialists pointing to elevated indoor social mixing over Christmas.
Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is accountable for only one in 200 COVID infections within the UK, though it has change into dominant in components of the US.
ONS head of well being surveillance Michelle Bowen mentioned the spike in optimistic assessments is essentially seen in main school-age youngsters and folks over 50.
She mentioned: “Across English areas, infections have elevated within the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, the East Midlands, the East of England, the South East and the South West.
“Cases have also increased in those aged two to school Year 6, and those aged 50 years and over.”
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Cases peaked final winter at 4.3 million throughout the peak of Omicron’s unfold.
The variety of infections then hit a document 4.9 million on 1 April final yr.
Jonathan Ball, molecular virology professor at Nottingham University, mentioned there may be “no evidence” that XBB.1.5 is extra harmful than earlier variants.
“It might be able to escape antibodies, but that’s not the only immunity we have,” he mentioned.
“Our immune system is used to adapting to viruses.
“We’d higher get used to the emergence of recent variants, no less than for the foreseeable future.
“Yes, they will lead to new waves of infection, but vaccination is still proving to be a very effective weapon to protect the most vulnerable from serious disease.”
The variety of sufferers typically hospital beds in England shot as much as 5,105 final week, up virtually half on the earlier week, NHS knowledge confirmed.
Hospital admissions for flu had been operating at a decade-high within the days earlier than Christmas, though it has since fallen.
Ambulance handover delays have additionally triggered document wait instances exterior A&E.
In the run-up to Christmas, greater than 1 / 4 of sufferers waited in ambulances exterior hospitals greater than an hour and 4 in ten waited no less than half an hour.
Source: information.sky.com”