COVID-19: Is the UK on the brink of a new coronavirus wave – and should we be worried?

New COVID data suggests that after months of declining case rates, the number of people testing positive across the UK is starting to go up again. For the week ending 2 June, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said there were 'early signs of a possible increase in percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus'. It was most noticeable in England and Northern Ireland, where the positivity rate is one in every 70 people and one in every 65 people respectively. And it is being driven by new sub-variants of Omicron - BA.4 and BA.5. A separate Imperial College study released on Tuesday suggests that being infected with Omicron does not provide much immune protection from being reinfected.