Covid cases rising as new FLiRT variants become dominant strain

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New Covid FLiRT variants spread so quickly that they are probably now the dominant strain of the virus in the UK, new data indicates.

The variants, two key mutations from the JN.1 variant first detected in September, are starting to push up overall Covid cases in the UK, after several months at a three-year low, separate figures suggest.

The main FLiRT variants, known individually as KP.2 and KP.3, saw their combined share of UK Covid cases reach 40 per cent on 22 April, the latest day for which data is available.

That's more than double the proportion seen a fortnight earlier, as overall UK cases stayed about the same.

And based on their trajectory, scientists expect that the new variants have exceeded the 50 per cent mark in the 11 days since the latest figures.

This would make FLiRT the new dominant variants in the UK, supplanting JN.1 with a majority share of infections.

But their sharp rise is also thought to be pushing up Covid cases in the UK overall, with new figures yesterday revealing that the proportion of people testing positive for the virus had jumped in the space of a week.

Positivity rates from the virus through the UK Health Security Agency's (UKHSA) surveillance system were 7.1 per cent last week, compared to 4.6 per cent the previous week.

The figures relate to the proportion of people who take a Covid test, not the overall population - but they act as a rough barometer of what is going on more generally.

And while people testing positive for Covid can be typically at 10 per cent or higher in the winter, the sudden jump from 4.6 per cent to 7.1 per cent in a week, in the middle of spring, is adding fuel to concerns revealed in i this week that a new group of variants, known as FLiRT, could push up cases.

Yesterday's data also showed that hospitalisations from Covid increased slightly from 1.97 to 2.56 per 100,000 over the one-week period.

"I think we are the start of a Covid wave driven by the FLiRT variants which are quite likely to be at about 50 per cent of total infections now," Professor Christina Pagel, of University College London, told i.

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However, any spike in infections is not expected to be anything like as big as seen in the run up to Christmas - when 2.5 million, or 4.6 per cent of the UK population had Covid - because we are heading into the summer.

At the same time, the new subvariants are not as different from their "parents" than some previous subvariants were from theirs, while the two mutations have been around before, earlier in the pandemic, in some previous variants - but not since JN.1 became the dominant variant.

Professor Pagel said: "I'm not sure it will be that big - given that we just had JN.1 and summer is coming. And we definitely won't see a big hospital wave."

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, meanwhile, thinks it "very likely" that FLiRT infections now account for the majority of UK cases.

"Although our monitoring of Covid infections is very patchy, the latest data indicates that infections are on the rise," he said.

"The spread of new virus variants and waning immunity are a concern. We need to keep a close eye on the spread of the new FLiRT variants and may need an updated vaccine later in the year to provide better protection."

The FLiRT variants involve two key mutations from the JN.1 variant, which mean it can spread more easily.

One sees a mutation, known as F, being replaced by another, known as L. The other involves mutation R being supplanted by mutation T - giving the main letters for the term FLiRT.