More good news, as infection levels in England stay at their lowest level since 2021. The risk level is still Moderate, with 1 in every 640 people in England infected. In other good news, other respiratory viruses are now back at baseline levels. The risk from respiratory viruses, including Covid, in the community remains at its lowest ever level.
What Does This Mean For Me?
Most people are able to consider relaxing precautions against catching Covid in all but high risk indoor places. The science is clear that infection levels are currently very low. People who are very Covid-cautious may well feel that they wish to maintain precautions in medium-high risk places. We give very detailed guidance on this in the table below.
BA 3.2 ‘Cicada’
The media are incorrectly reporting that the BA 3.2 Covid variant, nicknamed Cicada, is ‘beginning to be seen in the UK’. This variant has actually been the leading or dominant variant in the UK since late January. However, Cicada has not so far triggered a wave of new infections or serious illness. In fact, Covid infection levels and hospitalisations in the UK have gone down since the arrival of Cicada.
It’s important to remember that, even when Covid infection levels are historically low, nearly 80,000 people are still catching Covid every week. But the virus doesn’t infect more people than this because most people have temporary immunity to catching Covid. They have this temporary immunity because they have recently had Covid, or have been recently vaccinated, or both. If a new variant comes along which can evade this community infection, as happened several times a year from 2021 to 2024, millions of people catch the new variant and we see a huge wave of infections which overwhelms the NHS and causes huge social costs.
But, since the beginning of 2025, no new variant has come along with the capability to cut through community immunity. So, we have had no huge waves of infection, just a winter wave caused by people being close together indoors. Instead, two or three main variants have been in constant low-level circulation. People catch one or other of them depending on their infection immunity. This is what we call the ‘variant soup’. BA 3.2 has simply become the leading variant in the soup in early 2026.
BuDS will continue to monitor the situation very closely and we will let you know at the first sign of any significant rise in infection levels. However, there is no sign that such a rise is going to happen in the near future.
Risk Analysis
Given the very low level of Covid and other respiratory viruses, and in accordance with the precautionary principle, we now recommend that precautions against respiratory viruses should be taken by everyone in high risk indoor places only.
The risk mitigations (things you can do to protect yourself) in higher risk indoor areas include wearing a PPE respiratory mask indoors, improving fresh air ventilation, using a HEPA filter, and avoiding higher-risk areas.
In lower, medium, and medium-high risk indoor places, people who are not highly Covid-cautious should consider whether precautions can be relaxed. We continue to not recommend precautions outdoors, unless you are in a dense crowd of people.
Highly Covid-Cautious
We are using the phrase ‘highly Covid-cautious’ to mean people who do not wish to take even low risks of catching Covid. This may reflect their personal medical status (e.g. immunocompromised or acutely clinically vulnerable), or it may simply be that, regardless of their health status, they recognise the wider risks of Covid infection and do not wish to run those risks. BuDS warns only about infection risk (how likely you are to catch Covid in the community) and not about illness risk, i.e. the personal health consequences for you if you catch Covid.
Detailed Covid Infection Risk Analysis
| Infection Risk | Places | Infection Risk factors | Likely number of Covid infected people on a single visit/journey this week | Risk mitigations (things you can do to protect yourself) |
| High | Buses, trains, taxis, transit systems like London Underground, hospitals, GP practices, dentists, vaccination clinics, pharmacies, schools, universities and colleges | Used by very large numbers of people who are not taking precautions. Typically, poorly ventilated spaces. Journeys typically involve several stages and venues, widening infection risk | Minimum 2, potentially 8+ | Minimise visits. Maximise fresh air ventilation (open windows if possible, etc). We recommend that everyone wears a PPE respiratory mask (FFP2/3 rated) on every visit to these places, in view of the high infection risk. |
| Medium-high | Large bars and clubs, large supermarkets, indoor shopping centres, large office buildings, most cinemas and theatres. | Used by large numbers of people, who are not taking precautions. Typically poorly ventilated. | Minimum 1, potentially 2+ | Minimise visits. Maximise fresh air ventilation (open windows if possible, etc). We continue to recommend Covid precautions including a respiratory mask for highly Covid-cautious people using these spaces, but other people may feel it is currently safe enough for them to relax some precautions in view of the lower infection risk. |
| Medium | Medium-sized bars, clubs, and restaurants (200 seats or more), smaller supermarkets, smaller offices, individual larger shops | Used by medium numbers of people, who are not taking precautions. Typically poorly ventilated. | Potentially 1 | Minimise visits. Maximise fresh air ventilation (open windows if possible, etc). We continue to recommend Covid precautions including a respiratory mask for highly Covid-cautious people using these spaces, but other people may feel it is currently safe enough for them to relax some precautions in view of the lower infection risk. |
| Lower | Small cafes (around 25 seats), small shops, infrequently used buildings e.g. churches (outside of services), buildings which, at the time of visit, have very few people inside them | Used by small numbers of people, who are not taking precautions. Can be poorly ventilated. | You are statistically unlikely to encounter an infected person, even on multiple visits, although this risk cannot be excluded. After 13 to 26 visits, statistically you are likely to encounter one infected person over all of those visits. | Minimise visits. Maximise fresh air ventilation (open windows if possible, etc). We continue to recommend Covid precautions including a respiratory mask for highly Covid-cautious people using these spaces, but other people may feel it is currently safe enough for them to relax some precautions in view of the lower infection risk. |
| Low | Outdoors (except when in a dense crowd) | The moving fresh air makes transmission of Covid or flu from one person to another unlikely, except where two people are very close together. | The number of infected people is less relevant because the risk of transmission of Covid or flu from one person to another outdoors is unlikely. | No precautions needed but avoid very close contact (under 1m) with potentially infected people. For complete peace of mind, remain 2m from potentially infected people. |
| Covid, flu, norovirus, bird flu and measles are all airborne. An infected person in an unventilated indoor place creates an invisible cloud of virus (and sometimes infected water droplets) which hangs in the air for you to breathe in. The virus and/or droplet cloud can be dispersed and made less harmful, or harmless, using fresh air ventilation – e.g. opening a window or door. Fresh air is the enemy of Covid and the friend of Covid-cautious people. Another way to deal with an indoor cloud of Covid is to use a HEPA filter. These filters suck in the air, remove the viruses, and blow out virus-free clean air. HEPA filters are essential when an indoor space cannot be ventilated with fresh air, e.g. no (or little) opening windows. PPE respiratory masks filter viruses out of the air you personally breathe, if they are fitted and used correctly. PPE masks are the last line of defence against airborne viruses. As we explain in the table above, Covid-cautious people can use one or a combination of these precautions to help make indoor spaces safer for them. | ||||
More Information
This is BuDS’ 265th Covid risk assessment since the beginning of the pandemic, and we are still the only organisation publishing free risk data for disabled and Covid-cautious people. We will update you on the situation again next week.
If you’d like to get our weekly Covid risk assessments direct to your email inbox, completely free of charge, you can subscribe here: https://budscovidinfo.substack.com/
To understand more about our Covid risk levels and what they mean, use this link: https://buds.org.uk/covid-19-risk-levels-in-bucks/
To make a donation and help us continue these risk assessments into 2026, use this link: https://www.peoplesfundraising.com/fundraising/buds-covid-information-project-2026
For more Covid information and help, or if you’d like to know more about how we calculate risk, please contact BuDS and we will be happy to help.