Issued this Wednesday October 6, the latest report of the UK Office for National Statistics reveals new data as for 20,262 people followed-up by the Office of National Statistics between July 2, 2020 and September 25, 2021.
With these data, statisticians managed to notice that as soon as the Delta variant became the dominant strain in the UK soil – starting from May 17 – the toll of Covid reinfections skyrocketed.
“The risk of reinfection was higher in the period after 17 May 2021 compared with the period before; this reflects a higher risk of reinfection during the period when the Delta variant of coronavirus (COVID-19) was the dominant strain”, the authors of the study wrote. And yet, reinfections are less likely to cause severe Covid, unlike first infections.
“These findings suggest viral loads at reinfection tend to be higher where reinfections are predominantly from the Delta variant, compared with other variants”, they go on. As a matter of fact, 137 people in the 296 cases of reinfection studied have shown a higher viral load compared with their first infection.
This new report from the UK Office for National Statistics adds that women are more likely to be reinfected than men; that symptomatic sick are less likely to be reinfected; and people showing on-set pathologies are more likely to be reinfected.
