Two thirds of people who catch Omicron have already had Covid
Two thirds of the people infected with omicron have previously already had the Covid virus, a major new study suggests.
Imperial College London’s REACT-1 study sent out 100,000 Covid tests to people around England and asked them fill in a questionnaire.
One question is if the person taking the swab has had Covid before, and if this was confirmed with a test, or was just a suspected case.
More than 3,500 people who tested positive between January 5 and January 20 answered this question, and almost two-thirds (64.5 per cent) said they had previously tested positive for coronavirus.
A further 7.5 per cent said they suspected they had caught the virus previously, but had not received a positive test.
The latest UK Health Security Agency figures show 11 per cent of all cases were reinfections, but the new study indicates the true figure may be much higher.
However, reinfections are not included in the current daily case figures, an oversight which is now set to be corrected as the UKHSA announced on Tuesday reinfections in England will be included in daily cases from January 31 onwards.
A reinfection will be defined as a person testing positive twice, at least 90 days apart, and the daily figures will be updated back to the start of the pandemic.
Imperial’s study also confirmed that the prevalence of Covid reached an all-time high earlier this month, peaking at more than four per cent of the population, equivalent to around one infected person per 23 people.
Almost all of the positive tests detected though the study were omicron, completely replacing delta.