We agree, but it's shouting into the void. There's no political pressure on UKHSA to change their policies, and the leadership there is still largely the one that Boris Johnson put in place.

Thank you, Ryan. As so often, we wait and see...

We are incredibly grateful to our wonderful volunteers and advisors, and their dedication and professionalism. We don't get paid for any of our IAG work.

This is BuDS’ 292nd Covid risk assessment since the beginning of the pandemic. BuDS is the only organisation publishing free risk data for disabled and Covid-cautious people in England. We will update you on the situation again next week.

BuDS only advises on infection risk (how likely it is that you will meet someone with Covid), not on how serious a Covid infection might be for you. (2/2)

Our aim is to help Covid-Cautious people continue to engage safely in society while Covid levels are high. Obviously, these are only our recommendations, and everyone is free to choose the level of Covid precaution that feels right for them. (1/2)

If SW.2 does establish itself, we might see a ‘second peak’ in February or March, or the current wave may be prolonged if SW.2 joins in and ‘fuels the fire’. Or, of course, SW.2 may become just another variant in the UK ‘soup’ without driving a wave as such. (4/4)

SW.2 *may* cause a wave of Covid in the UK if it establishes itself as a dominant variant here. This is a big if, because population immunity is different in every country, and so it isn’t guaranteed that what happens in the US will happen in the UK. (3/4)

However, accordingly to WHO and ECDC data, SW.2 has not appeared much in Europe or the UK yet, although it may do in the future. (2/4)

There is a new Covid variant in the US which is increasingly driving new infections. This is variant SW.2, a mutation of XFG. It was quickly replacing XFG as the dominant variant in the US as of the summer of this year, which is the latest CDC data available. (1/4)

XFG has been the biggest single variant in the UK since around May 2026. It’s the ‘biggest ingredient in the Covid soup’, and it’s causing a lot of infections, but it is doing so because people’s immunity to all Covid variants has waned, not because XFG is a new variant. (7/7)

We know that this current wave is not caused by the XFG or ‘Stratus’ variant arriving for the first time in the UK, as some media claim, because the XFG variant has been circulating in Europe and the UK since the beginning of 2025, two years ago. (6/7)

Once most people have had Covid, they are temporarily unable to catch it again, so the wave quickly declines. This is what is happening in England right now, just as it happened last year. (5/7)

This puts people with weak immunity resistance to catching Covid in the perfect indoor environment to catch Covid. And, inevitably, people do catch Covid and the wave builds until most people have had Covid. (4/7)

Firstly, Covid levels in England have been very low over the summer, so only relatively small number of people have temporary immunity against catching Covid again. Secondly, people are now meeting inside because the summer has ended. (3/7)

The current wave of Covid in England is not being driven by a new variant of Covid, from America or anywhere else. It is happening because two things have coincided. (2/7)

Many media outlets are saying that the current Covid wave in England is connected to the recent Covid wave in the US. Some reports claim that the English wave is driven by the XFG (‘Stratus’) variant, crossing from America. None of these claims are accurate. (1/7)