Seven in 10 people in England have had Covid, research shows

ONS study reveals only one in three people had been infected until emergence of Omnicron variant

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More than seven in 10 people in England have been infected with Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The estimate, the most detailed analysis to date, suggests 71% of people in England had caught Covid between 27 April 2020 and 11 February 2022. The proportion is likely to have risen further in the most recent Omicron wave, during which there was the highest prevalence at any time in the pandemic, including in older age groups that had previously had relatively low rates of infection.