Rising Covid-19 infections among schoolchildren in England could spark a resurgence in Omicron variant infections in older people, researchers behind a major community coronavirus study have warned.
Imperial College London’s React-1 study, published on Wednesday, estimated that 4.4 per cent of people in England were infected with Covid-19 between January 5 and January 20, the highest level since the study began in May 2020, based on test results from around 100,000 people.
Some 7.8 per cent of primary school children had coronavirus over the same period, higher than any other age group. Among over-75s, the most vulnerable age group, prevalence was 2.4 per cent.
While the reproduction rate, or R value, was 0.95 for the wider population, suggesting the overall epidemic was in decline, the R value for children aged between 5 and 17 years old was 1.17, suggesting infections were on the rise.
“There is good news in our data in that infections had been rapidly dropping during January,” said Paul Elliott, a professor of epidemiology at Imperial College London and lead author on the…
