Covid is becoming endemic in the UK, the leading scientist heading up a major tracking app has said.
Professor Tim Spector, principal investigator of the Zoe Covid Symptom Study app, said the virus had now entered the phase where it will be found regularly among particular pockets of the population but at low levels.
He said the chances of getting the virus in UK tomorrow are now one in 47,000 for those waiting for vaccination, one in 98,000 if you have had one jag and less than one in 170,000 for those who have been given two vaccines.
"That’s going to vary two or three fold depending on where you are in the country," he said adding, "We are still amongst the lowest rates in Europe."
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Moray is facing a prolonged period under tough restrictions because of a rise in cases thought to be causes by people flouting the rules.
NHS Grampian has created an incident management team to try to bring the virus under control and is urging people to get tested even if they do not have symptoms.
Moray had 81.4 cases per 100,000 people over the past seven days, significantly higher than the rest of the country. The spike in cases could have implications for Scotland's exit from lockdown on May 17.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has vowed to press ahead with the easing of lockdown despite a rise in the number of cases of the Indian coronavirus variant in the UK.
Cases of the Indian variant in the UK have more than doubled from 202 to 520 over the past week and surge testing is taking place in affected regions.
However, Prof Spector said the UK is unlikely to see another big wave this year and should not require any further lockdowns.
“We are exactly where we were last Summer and tracking data is broadly comparable to government data.
"It’s what we have been saying for a few months based on our data. It bodes well that there is national consensus that we are going to come out of this pandemic safely.
“The levels remain low – such a low level that our confidence levels around them are fairly large.
“When levels do get low, our estimates are less precise.
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“We now have 60% of the population vaccinated at least partially and lots with natural immunity. This means we are judging what’s going on in a number of young people who have not been vaccinated and disease in vaccinated people.
Prof Spector said some woman had reported changes to their menstrual cycle after vaccinations, such as an unexpected period after the menopause.
"At the moment this is just a few hundreds of these, which given 600,000 women have reported is small but we are taking this seriously and are going to start asking questions more formally."
He said data had shown that several hundred people had reported developing mild cases of Covid after the first vaccination and several thousand after two.
"Whereas 50% of people had symptoms after a week, less than a third have symptoms after vaccination.
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“The important of our survey is getting even greater because as the disease is shifting the fact we haven’t relied on those three symptoms, like the official government ones allows us much more breadth to see what’s going on, whether not only the new variants might be causing different symptoms but also the variants combined with the different vaccines.
"So keep logging in and helping us there, particularly as we move into the endemic phase."
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