Covid hitting one group hardest as experts warn of new summer wave of infections

A summer Covid wave is growing, fuelled by a new variant known as the "FLiRT" - Fresh Lineage of Rapid Transmission. The elderly are currently the most affected, with hospital rates indicating a rise in infections.

In the week ending June 16, the number of people hospitalised with Covid reached 3.31 per 100,000, up from 2.67 the previous week, and soared to 34.70 among those over 85.

Prof Steve Griffin from Leeds University commented on the situation: "This is clearly early days, but it certainly looks as though yet another Covid wave is building. If the rise in hospitalisations continues, this is obviously worrying."

READ MORE: The symptoms to look out for as new Covid variants hit the country amid talk of 'summer wave'

Concerns are mounting that Covid rates could cascade through different age groups, potentially exacerbated by indoor gatherings during the football European Championships and summer music festivals. Recent figures reveal that 146 individuals had Covid-19 mentioned on their death certificates in the week leading up to June 14, a stark contrast to the nearly 1,000 weekly deaths at the pandemic's peak, reports the Mirror.

Prof Paul Hunter, a prominent infectious disease expert from the University of East Anglia, shared his perspective: "To be honest, you can't really avoid it because it's so common. We are all of us going to get repeated Covid infections from birth through to death.

"Generally what we've seen is that over the last three years, four years, the severity of illness associated with Covid has gone down a lot. Ultimately, it's going to become another cause of the common cold and, for many people, that's what it is now."

This observation comes as NHS England made a final call last week for individuals to get their Spring booster jab, noting that just over half of those eligible have received it, with Sunday marking the last opportunity for eligible groups.

Since the discontinuation of widespread testing, gauging infection rates has become more challenging, but hospital admissions suggest that a summer wave had begun by mid-June, with a 25% increase in cases within a week. Additionally, there was a 29% rise in positive cases in the week leading up to June 22, though most testing is now concentrated in hospitals and healthcare settings.

The main FLiRT variants, referred to as KP. 2 and KP.3, represented 40% of Covid cases in April and are characterised by several new mutations. Prof Griffin remarked: "Although we've just had a spring booster campaign for vulnerable populations, the uptake was lower than in 2023. There is a considerable difference between the current vaccines and circulating viruses."

The term "Flirt" originates from the technical names for the variant's spike protein mutations or amino acid changes. Each amino acid has its own letter abbreviation.

Flirt is F456L + R346T, which translates to phenylalanine (F) changing to leucine (L) at position 456 and arginine (R) changing to threonine (T) at position 346. Dr Jamie Lopez Bernal, a consultant epidemiologist for immunisation at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), previously stated that they were "seeing an increase in Covid-19 across all indicators, including hospitalisations".