# Omicron variants drive summer increases

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/dr-john-campbell-7851784/omicron-variants-drive-summer-increases
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/dr-john-campbell-7851784/omicron-variants-drive-summer-increases.md
Podcast: [Dr. John Campbell](https://stenobird.com/podcast/dr-john-campbell-7851784)
Published: 2026-09-03T08:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/VG4192809489.mp3
Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/VG4192809489.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/dr-john-campbell-7851784/episodes/omicron-variants-drive-summer-increases
Duration seconds: 1774

## Resource

Direct link to Africa videos, https://www.youtube.com/c/WefwafwaAndrew (Subscribing to Wefwafwa’s channel will help this work) And Ben’s latest update https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrcbQiAbBtQ Omicron, BA.4 and BA.5 Growth advantage, good at evading the immune system UK ONS https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19/latestinsights 2.07% in England (1 in 50 people) 2.13% in Wales (1 in 45 people) 2.34% in Northern Ireland (1 in 45 people) 3.36% in Scotland (1 in 30 people) Risk of re-infection Seven times higher with Omicron (20 December 2021 onwards) Compared with Delta (17 May to 19 December 2021). BMJ, Covid-19: Omicron sub variants driving new wave of infections in UK https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o1506 Start of a new wave of covid infections, BA.4 and BA.5. Covid infections up 43% week on week Independent Sage, Kit Yates, University of Bath It is pretty much official from the latest ONS data that the UK has entered the next wave of covid. It is most concerning to see that there has been an increase in covid infections in older age groups Hospital admissions, England Up 31% week on week Beds occupied, 5,008 1st June, 3,800 Deepti Gurdasani, William Harvey Research Institute This is our second wave in six months, and infection has remained very high even between waves. It’s hard to predict how large the wave will be Steve Powis, NHS England medical director Expects fewer admissions than previous two 2022 surges We are likely to see a bit of an increase over the next few weeks South Africa BA.4 and BA.5 wave has now passe, with fewer hospital admissions and deaths than BA.1 wave in December. Portugal BA.5 is now dominant but their wave has just peaked United States US, past 2 weeks…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/dr-john-campbell-7851784/episodes/omicron-variants-drive-summer-increases/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/dr-john-campbell-7851784/omicron-variants-drive-summer-increases.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.