HOSPITAL wards throughout Berkshire are currently managing a number of Covid outbreaks as new stains appear in the Summer months.

Despite this, visitors are allowed to enter the involved wards but are asked to sanitise their hands both before and after their visit and to wear face masks.

Visitors exhibiting symptoms such as a cold, cough, high fever, flu, diarrhoea, and vomiting are implored not to attend the hospital.

In recent months a new group of variants, external of Covid emerge, collectively nicknamed as FLiRT.

They are descended from the dominant JN.1 variant, which is itself a sub-variant of the Omicron strain of Covid.

Together they are accounting for many current Covid cases in England.

Figures released by the NHS up until the end of June, show that although figures in the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation are staying at a steady rate, Frimley Health has seen a rise in the last few months.

Prof Strain, from the University of Exeter's Medical School, told the BBC that the "new variant" and "waning immunity" were also contributing factors to Covid spreading in the region.

He said: "[FLiRT] escaped the immunity that antibodies from the initial vaccine has given us, which means, unless you had the updated vaccine in autumn last year, you probably don't have the antibodies that will reduce your risk of catching it," he explained.

The virologist added the old vaccine was "still giving really good protection against severe illness" but that protection was "starting to wane".