[ad_1]
COVID-19 cases have surged by nearly half in a week, official figures show.
Last week, an estimated 1,415,600 people had coronavirus in the UK, up 425,800 or 43%.
This is the highest estimate for infections since the start of May, but is still well below the record high of 4.9 million at the end of March.
Cases rose in all four nations of the UK.
In England, around one in 50 people had the virus, according to the coronavirus infection survey by the Office for National Statistics.
In Wales and Northern Ireland, one in 45 were positive, and in Scotland one in 30 had the virus.
The rise is likely to have been caused by the Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5.
Omicron BA.1 is the original variant of Omicron that saw infections surge across the UK around in December and early January this year.
[ad_2]