Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data he holds on the number of people who have been reinfected with covid-19 in the UK; and whether reinfections are included in the daily figures released by Public Health England.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) monitors weekly COVID-19 cases, including numbers and rates of COVID-19 reinfections in England, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports-2021-to-2022-season

As of 19 December 2021, 127,282 possible reinfections had been identified in England during the pandemic since the first recorded case of a reinfection. As of 21 December 2021, a total of 9.8 million first positive COVID-19 test results had been recorded in England. The weekly rates of possible reinfections per 1,000 first infections closely follow the profile for first infections.

Reinfections for the Omicron variant are published in ‘SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England Technical briefing 33’, which reports that as of 17 December 2021, 9.5% of cases of the Omicron variant had a previous confirmed infection. This data is available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1043807/technical-briefing-33.pdf

Daily COVID-19 dashboard data for the United Kingdom does not currently include reinfections for England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Those who test positive more than once are counted at the time of their first test.