Omicron Is Very Good at Evading Immune Systems

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Ome ron is very good at evading our immunity, isn't it? Oh, absolutely yes. And the huge rise in cases isn't just because we got together with family at christmas or we went to a new year's eve party. A lot of the mutations in the spike protein of omicron actually allow it to bind more strongly to the receptor on your human cells and so that sort enables the virus to get in.

On Wednesday, 194,747 daily confirmed Covid cases were reported for the whole of the UK. But this doesn’t include all the people who have caught the virus for the second, or even third time. In fact, official figures for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland don’t include those who have had Covid before, despite warnings from scientists that up to 15% of Omicron cases could be reinfections. Madeleine Finlay speaks to the Guardian’s science editor Ian Sample about why reinfections are so high for Omicron, what these cases could tell us, and how it could affect public health measures in the future. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod