YORK’S Omicron wave looks to have finally peaked after record numbers of students and children caught the virus - but thousands of residents are predicted to suffer Long Covid in its wake.

City of York Council’s latest Covid data tracker report reveals that 1,087 individuals at the University of York had to self-isolate towards the end of January after testing positive - more than three times the previous highest peak of 331 in October 2020.

Almost 600 York school pupils also contracted Covid in the last week of January, with 596 cases confirmed at 62 schools across the York area.

The rate of new Covid cases for children aged 10-14 was 3,009 per 100,000 people, while the rate for children aged five-nine was 2,667 and the rate for people older than 60 was only 280.5.

The report shows that almost all such cases were the Omicron variant, believed to cause milder symptoms than Delta. Only 0.05 per cent of Covid cases in the city in January were Delta, with another 0.05 per cent being the Delta Plus variant, while 98.4 per cent of cases were Omicron.

However, the report says a computer model - the ‘Situational Awareness Explorer Post Acute Covid-19 model’ - is predicting there will be 3,565 new cases of post-acute Covid in York in the three month period from January 1 to March 31, of which 740 will ‘require services'.

It says post-acute Covid - known as Long Covid - was defined as ‘signs and symptoms that develop during or after an infection consistent with Covid-19, which continue for more than 12 weeks and are not explained by an alternative diagnosis'.

A University of York spokesman said yesterday that it saw a spike in cases linked to the start of term but said numbers had been steadily falling day by day since the end of January, down to 849 last Friday and 600 yesterday.

He said the university worked closely with public health colleagues at City of York Council and extended some of its mitigation measures for several more weeks when the Government announced a return to Plan A, with staff and students still requested to wear a face covering and have regular tests and the vaccine.

The report shows that only 27 individuals at York St John University had to self isolate at the end of January, after a peak of 131 on January 10.

And as of last Thursday, 16 care homes in the York area had confirmed Covid infections.

However, the report does indicate that the Covid situation is now improving in York. It says the city’s latest ‘Exceedance’ rating, which compares the number of new cases over a 14 day period with the previous six weeks to indicate if the trend in the number of new cases is worsening or improving, is ‘Green'.