‘High chance’ Covid strain worse than Omicron is coming soon, warns expert

There’s a “high chance” a Covid strain worse than Omicron will emerge in the near future, one of the world’s top experts has warned.

England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty. Credit: Hannah McKay - WPA Pool / Getty Images

There’s a “high chance” a Covid strain worse than Omicron will emerge in the near future, one of the world’s top experts has warned.

In a grim prediction, England’s chief medical officer Sir Chris Whitty said the world would likely experience seasonal upticks in Covid outbreaks - as well as the possibility of more virulent or deadly strains taking hold in the next two years.

The top doctor, who advises the UK government and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, said the pandemic could still pack a few punches yet.

“I think we need to be aware there’s a long way to go with this [pandemic] and it’ll also throw surprises as it has,” Sir Chris told a public health conference.

“And there’s a high chance that we will all be discussing, and I will be discussing with my colleagues, a new variant at some point in the next two years that actually significantly changes our balance of risk.”

He added: “We could well end up with a new variant that produces worse problems than we’ve got with Omicron and the Omicron problems are by no means trivial.”

Sir Chris added that instead of expecting Covid to simply go away one day, we must learn to live with it “and just roll with it”.

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An expert has warned that a Covid strain worse than Omicron could be just around the corner. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

The UK was one of the first nations in the world to ditch all Covid restrictions, and while it saw a large number of cases during the height of the Omicron wave, its death toll was significantly lower than some - including Sir Chris - predicted.

He forecast as any as 6,000 deaths a day if Omicron was allowed to run wild over the UK’s winter months, but Covid deaths in the UK peaked at fewer than 300 a day - far lower than the country’s peak of 1,325 deaths in a day in January 2021.

The medical expert referred to Hong Kong, where there has been a sudden spike in Covid hospitalisations, as evidence the pandemic could yet have a sting in the tail.

“Indeed, there are some parts of the world where, in my view, big problems are all – or largely – ahead of them. So I think the idea that is a global problem [which] has moved to a stable state, is incorrect,” Sir Chris said.

Covid cases in Hong Kong were at a relative trickle through much of the pandemic – sometimes around 100 cases a day but often far less or even none at all. But that all changed in early February when new infections began to skyrocket.

England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has warned of new strains that could emerge. Credit: Tolga Akmen / POOL / AFP)

A commuter is seen wearing a face mask in Melbourne. Credit: NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie

On March 4, 73,000 new cases were recorded in a single day. That figure has gradually dropped but the territory of 7.5 million is now recording around 20,000 cases every 24 hours.

From barely any Covid-19 deaths, Hong Kong now sees around 300 a day.

So many deaths are occurring, in recent weeks workers have been seen placing bodies of coronavirus victims into refrigerated shipping containers in Hong Kong as morgues run out of space.

The death toll, in part due to lower vaccination rates among the elderly, is far more than Australia where fatalities peaked at around 80 a day in late January and are now around 20.

Sir Chris’ warning comes as a new Covid strain, dubbed Deltacron, begins to surge.

The new variant, which is also known as BA2, was officially recognised after its genomic sequence was uploaded to the global Covid database by virologists in France last week, and is said to be a hybrid of the Delta and Omicron strains.

It is believed to be as transmissible as measles with similar side effects to Omicron.