The UK is moving to its "living with Covid" phase, but the virus still needs to be watched closely.
What's the issue? The number of cases of long Covid will need to be monitored. What's the issue? More than one in 50 people in the UK say they have long Covid and more than half a million have symptoms that have already lasted more than a year. What's the issue? Legal rules have been replaced with advice on what to do in the future. The impact of our shifting behaviour is likely to be greater than any seasonal impact on the virus. It is obvious, but Covid is spread from one person to another - the more we congregate together, the greater the opportunities for the virus. Life is still far from normal and nobody knows for sure how we are all going to react to the changes in restrictions and testing. The more you use antivirals the greater the risk of resistance, which means they will need to be used carefully in the people with the most to gain from them. There is a risk of mutations every time the virus makes copies of itself so the only way to reduce the risk of variants is to minimise infections at a global level. Why is it important?