What we know about the signs of the new strain, and if it’s different to others

Covid-19 cases are rising again in the UK, due to the spread of a new variant that has been named Eris.

Scientists are confident that cases – and serious cases in particular – will not reach anything like the levels seen at previous peaks, and that numbers will remain relatively low for at least the next few weeks.

But they say September, when the summer holidays end and children go back to school, will be the month to watch for a possible spike.

What is the Eris Covid variant?

Eris is officially known as EG.5.1, and is a variant of Omicron. There is currently no evidence that it is more severe than previous strains.

However, it has quickly spread to represent 12.3 per cent of Covid cases in the UK, suggesting it’s considerably more infectious than other strains. It is expected to become the most common variant in the country in about two months.

What are the symptoms of Eris?

There is currently not much information about the specific symptoms EG.5.1 can cause. However, as it is a strain of Omicron, it could share many of the symptoms. According to the ZOE Health Study, the five most common symptoms of Omicron are:

• runny nose;
• headache;
• fatigue (mild or severe);
• sneezing;
• sore throat.

Professor Francois Balloux, director of the University College London Genetics Institute, said: “There’s no reason to believe EG.5.1 comes with different symptoms or is more severe than any other of the Omicron variants in circulation. It really doesn’t look like a serious concern to me.”

How many Covid cases are there?

Covid numbers are less accurate than at the peak of the pandemic, as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has stopped its nationwide infection survey.

However, the ZOE study suggests daily symptomatic cases have risen by 40 per cent in the past month – from 48,331 on 6 July to 67,459 on Sunday.

ZOE figures, which generally tallied quite closely with ONS numbers when they were available, are now seen as less accurate than they were at the peak of the pandemic, however, because fewer people are logging their symptoms.

Related Article

Sales of Covid tests have increased by a third this month in the UK.

Meanwhile, new data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) shows that hospital admissions for Covid have risen sharply in the last fortnight (though they are still at very low levels) – rising from 1.17 per 100,000 of the population to 1.97.

“We are definitely in a new wave. But we don’t know yet whether it will be a big one or a small one,” Professor Christina Pagel, of University College London, told i.

“Hopefully it won’t be too big – and there’s no reason just yet to think it will be big. But September will be the crunch I think when work and school start again and EG.5.1 will be dominant or close to it.”

Professor Paul Hunter, of University of East Anglia, added: “It is difficult to predict how Covid will go this autumn, but we are likely to see more cases as we progress towards winter.

“The other human coronaviruses tend to peak somewhere between November and February and it is likely that this is what we will see with Covid.”

Professor Lawrence Young, a virologist at Warwick University, told i: “It is very likely that EG.5.1 is contributing to the current increase in Covid infections we are currently experiencing in the UK.

“The UKHSA estimate that this variant has a clear growth advantage over other virus variants. While this means that the EG.5.1 variant is more infectious than other variants and is likely to become the dominant version of Covid over the coming months, there is no evidence that this virus is resulting in an increase in people with severe disease.”