Covid rules have been majorly lifted in England and parts of the UK with the latest changes to travel rules scrapping masks on flights. But Covid hospitalisations are on the rise again and a new variant has been found.
The UK Health Security Agency and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have confirmed that cases of Deltacron, a mutant hybrid of Omicron and Delta, have been detected. And experts are saying it is one of the most infectious diseases seen.
Now, there are concerns Stealth Covid, BA.2, a subvariant of Omicron, can't be differentiated with simple tests and is more transmissible than other variants. The UK Government has said that it remains unconcerned by the variants at the present time.
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Asked if he had any concerns over the Deltacron variant, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said: “There are variants that we would obviously keep under review. The most recent one of concern has been Omicron but we have successfully navigated our way through that as a country thanks to the response of the British people.
“There are also so-called subvariants of Omicron and we’re not concerned about any of those at this important time. We keep it under review but we have no concerns at all.”
Cases have also been found in France and Cyprus. The WHO is preparing to give an update on the variant in the UK. It is thought that neither of these new variants has different symptoms to previous types of Covid, therefore the symptoms to watch out for remain the same, LancsLive reports.
- a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
- a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or three or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
- a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you've noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal
According to Yella Hewings-Martin, PhD of the ZOE Covid Study, which is tracking symptoms across the country, the top five most commonly reported symptoms of Omicron are:
runny nose
headache
fatigue (mild or severe)
sneezing
sore throat
She said: "Interestingly, we've seen loss of smell and taste become much less common. It was in the top 10 symptoms earlier in 2021, and now it's ranking at 17, with only one in five people experiencing it."
