New figures from Britain’s official statistics body estimate that about 1 in 25 people in private households in England had Covid-19 in the week before Christmas, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant spread rapidly across the country.
The number jumped from 1 in 45 in the previous week, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday.
One in 25 is the equivalent of about 2 million people with coronavirus in England, the highest since the statistics body began estimating infection levels in May 2020.
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The figure was even higher in London, the British capital, where officials said around 1 in 15 people was likely to test positive for the coronavirus in the week to December 23.