Covid-19 cases have risen again.

A total of 741 have been detected by lateral flow tests.

Along with the 385 detected by PCR tests this brings the total to 1,126 active cases. Yesterday’s total was 1,020.

Seven people are hospital and none in intensive care.

The latest government surveillance report describes the island as experiencing ’a levelling off and possible fall’ in the wave that had been driven by the Delta variant.

However, it noted that the Omicron variant, which is spreading through the island, is ’rapidly becoming the dominant strain’.

This mirrors the situation in the UK, where analysis declared that Omicron had become the dominant strain of the virus before Christmas.

The report says: ’Due to the concerns regarding the ability of this variant to evade vaccine and infection induced immunity, we expect to see a fourth wave driven by omicron developing over the rest of this year and into [the] next.

’It is not yet possible to model the impact of this or its implications for demand on NHS services with any accuracy at this stage.’

Reported cases fell last week, with a ’levelling’ across all age groups, other than the 20 to 29 demographic - which saw a rise over the last three weeks.

And last week the reproduction number (R rate) - which is the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to - was 0.73.

Most recent seven-day daily average test positivity rate is 21.7%.

This is the percentage of people who test positive out of those overall tested.

The island’s total death total from the pandemic currently stands at 67.