Coronavirus rates are currently surging across the UK.
The latest data from Public Health England showed the rate of positive tests had risen by almost two thirds in the Liverpool City Region. Figures showed there were 1,737 cases in the week ending June 13, which is 677 more than the previous week.
The increase is in line with surging rates across the country as figures estimate around 1.13m people in the UK have coronavirus. Good Morning Britain's Dr Hilary Jones confirmed the current dominant strain is the BA.4 and BA.5 variants of the milder Omicron variant,
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He said: "Unfortunately, it is showing an uptake again. One in 50 people as opposed to one in 70 just two weeks ago have covid now." Many people are testing positive for the second and third time during the recent wave as figures from the Office for National Statistics shows the rate of reinfection has increased by 15 times since the Omicron variant.
A professor of immunology at Imperial College London explained testing positive for the Omicron variant offers little protection against catching it again. According to The Guardian, Danny Altmann, said: "The original Omicron BA.1 variant was itself massively immune-evasive, causing a huge breakthrough caseload, even in the vaccinate.
"It is also poorly immunogenic, which means that catching it offers little extra protection against catching it again. On top of that, there’s now further evidence of the very marginal ability of prior Omicron to prime any immune memory for BA.4 or 5, the sub-variants that seem to be driving the latest wave of infections."
Although it is possible to test positive for covid multiple times, reinfections should be less serious as people have residual immunity. This is particularly stronger among those who have been vaccinated.
The professor who leads the Zoe Health Study said health officials are still working to figure out how long immunity lasts for after testing positive for the Omicron variant. According to The Guardian, Tim Spector said: "There are definitely a lot of people who got covid at the start of the year who are getting it again, including some with BA.4/5 who had BA.1/2 just four months ago, who thought they would be protected.
"We still don’t have enough data to work out exactly when the susceptible periods [for reinfection] are, which is one reason why we need people to keep logging their symptoms. We do know it’s still quite rare within three months, and it used to also be rare within six months, but that’s not the case any more."
What to do if you test positive for coronavirus
The government axed laws surrounding self isolation earlier this year. However, the NHS still advise people to try to stay at home and avoid contact with others
People who have tested positive can pass the virus on for up to 10 days from when your infections starts, but many will no longer be infectious after five days.
The NHS urge people to "try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for five days" and avoid "meeting people at higher risk from covid-19 for 10 days, especially if their immune system means they’re at higher risk of serious illness from covid-19, even if they’ve had a covid-19 vaccine".
If a child or young people aged under 18 tests positive for coronavirus then they should avoid contact with people for three days from the day after they did their test. The NHS added: "Children and young people tend to be infectious to others for less time than adults. If they’re well and do not have a temperature after three days, there’s a much lower risk that they’ll pass on covid-19 to others."
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