"We continue to see concerning trends for COVID-19 ahead of the winter season in the Northern Hemisphere," WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an online news conference last week. The UK, for instance, is seeing 100,000 new cases a day, according to the Zoe Health Study, which is still continuing national surveillance. Worrying trendsĪlthough countries are seeing a spike in cases in the last month or two, this is not the full picture and are likely to be an underestimate, says the World Health Organization, as many countries have stopped reporting cases and deaths. Eris is now the most prevalent variant, accounting for over a quarter of cases (26.1% by mid-August). One of the latest sub-variants of Omicron that seems more infectious and able to evade immunity than previous variants has been called EG.5, nicknamed "Eris" after the Greek goddess of strife and discord. These moves are to counter the threat from the ever-evolving SARS-CoV-2 virus that is continuing to spawn new versions of itself. In the US, some private hospitals and clinics have reinstated mask requirements given the worrying spread of new variants, and the UK has brought forward its flu and COVID-19 booster vaccine campaigns by a month because of a spike in cases. "Deaths are increasing in some parts of the Middle East and Asia, intensive care unit admissions are increasing in Europe and hospitalisations are increasing in several regions." – Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General Yet three and a half years on, as the northern hemisphere moves towards winter and new variants of SARS-CoV-2 continue to evolve, talk of mask mandates and even lockdowns have been surfacing again. For many of us, lockdowns and other restrictions during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic have been filed away as an extraordinary moment in history in which the entire world was battling the same threat.
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