What are the current Covid variants in UK and what are the symptoms

The retrieved evidence does not name the SARS-CoV-2 variants currently circulating in the UK or list their specific symptoms. It covers variant evolution and immune escape up to early 2022, not the present day.

The most recent variant described in these records is PJ.2.1, a highly mutated "saltational" variant studied in 2026. It has exceptionally high ACE2-binding affinity but remains antigenically similar to the JN.1 family and has not developed strong immune evasion [2]. No record in this retrieval states which variants are dominant in the UK as of October 2026, nor does any record list the symptom profile of currently circulating strains.

For symptoms, the closest evidence comes from a 2025 Italian study of healthcare workers. It found that reinfections were milder than first infections: 45.5% of reinfections were symptomatic versus 66.6% of first infections, and the average positive-test period was 10.1 days versus 14.0 days [3]. A 2025 Korean study showed that severe disease was linked to lower lymphocyte counts, but that is a lab finding, not a symptom list [1].

My call: the retrieval cannot answer this question. The specific variants and their symptom profiles in the UK today are not in these records. Confidence: not clear — this is a gap in the retrieved literature, not a finding about the world.