On Thursday, the White House said President Joe Biden had tested positive for Covid, becoming the most high-profile figure yet to join the club of people only now, in the third year of this rife disease, notching up their first infection.
Figures from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) are striking. About 15% of people in England have never had Covid. But in the current wave, driven by the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of Omicron, this minority group still accounts for 55% of infections. How can so few be having such an effect? There are, as ever with Covid, multiple forces at work.
In a textbook pandemic, the proportion of Covid infections that affect first-timers is expected to drop from 100% in the early days to a much smaller number as the bug eventually infiltrates every niche of society. Ultimately, the only people unexposed tend to be babies and young children. Not that we will reach this point soon.
This story is from the July 23, 2022 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the July 23, 2022 edition of The Guardian.
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