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The latest coronavirus news updated every day including coronavirus cases, the latest news, features and interviews from New Scientist and essential information about the covid-19 pandemic

By Michael Le Page, Clare Wilson, Jessica Hamzelou, Sam Wong, Graham Lawton, Adam Vaughan, Conrad Quilty-Harper, Jason Arunn Murugesu and Layal Liverpool

Latest coronavirus news as of 12pm on 26 January

Around 1 in 23 people in England were infected with the omicron variant in January, suggesting cases of infection remain very high across the country

Infections of the omicron coronavirus variant remain at very high levels in England. While cases are falling in adults generally, they are rising in school-aged children and older individuals, according to latest results from the ongoing Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) study.

Researchers assessed 100,607 PCR test results taken from people in England aged five and older between 5 and 20 January 2022. Of these, 4.4 per cent gave positive results – a three-fold increase in the positivity rate compared to December. The figures suggest that, during this period, around 1 in 23 people in England were infected with the coronavirus.

Among a group of 3582 people who tested positive, 2315 had a confirmed positive test result in the past. This suggests that around two thirds of people infected in this current wave had previously had covid-19.

When the team sequenced the virus from 1406 positive results, 99 per cent were identified as the omicron variant. “We observed… almost complete replacement of delta by omicron,” the authors of the study write.

Generally, infections appear to be declining in adults, but rising in school-aged children. “There is good news in our data in that infections have been rapidly dropping during January, but they are still extremely high and may have recently stalled at a very high prevalence,” Paul Elliott at Imperial College London, who co-authored the study, said in a statement.

“Of particular concern is that there is rapidly increasing prevalence among children now they are back at school and, compared with December, prevalence in older people aged 65+ has increased seven- to 12-fold, which may lead to increased hospitalisations,” he said.

Other coronavirus news

Around 98 per cent of adults in the UK have antibodies for the virus that causes covid-19, according to estimates from the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS). This means that 98 per cent of adults are thought to have either recovered from an infection with the virus, or received a vaccination against it.

For the first time, the ONS has also estimated the proportion of children expected to test positive for antibodies to the virus. Around 60 per cent of 8 to 11 year olds and 91 per cent of 12 to 15 year olds in England are estimated to have antibodies to the virus. The figures are similar for Scotland, and slightly lower in Wales and Northern Ireland.

Two studies have identified factors that might one day help predict whether people will develop long covid. Carlo Cervia at the University of Zurich and his colleagues found lower levels of specific antibodies in people who went on to have lasting symptoms. Testing for this antibody signature can’t yet predict whether an individual will get long covid, but it might help identify those at increased risk, Cervia told The Guardian.

A separate study by Yapeng Su at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle and colleagues has identified a set of four factors that, together, appear to increase the risk of long covid. Having a high viral load and autoantibodies – those that attack the body’s own cells and tissues – as well as a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and reactivation of the Epstein-Barr virus are linked to long covid, whether the initial infection was mild or severe.

“Each [factor] is biologically plausible, consistent with theories that other people are pursuing, and importantly, each is actionable,” Steven Deeks at the University of California, San Francisco, told The New York Times. “If these pathways get confirmed, we as clinicians can actually design interventions to make people better.” – New Scientist