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New COVID variants BA.4 and BA.5 now account for over HALF of US cases as experts fear the strains will spark another summer flare-up, despite cases rising just 10% in the last week
- COVID-19 variants BA.4 and BA.5 combined now account for just over half of active cases in the United States, according to the CDC
- Many experts fear their spread as they are believed to have the ability to evade the natural immunity provided by previous Covid infection
- One expert already fears it has gained a foothold in New York City, reversing long trends of case declines over the past few weeks
- The US is recording an average of 109,384 Covid infections each day, up 10% from last week, and is recording nearly 400 daily deaths from the virus
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New COVID-19 variants are beginning to rise in the United States, with the highly feared BA.4 and BA.5 strains now accounting for about half of active cases in the country, according to the latest sequencing data available.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Tuesday that in the week ended June 25, strains were combined for 52 percent of the cases sequenced — a combination to eliminate the previously dominant BA 2.12.1 strain. to overtake trunk.
Both strains are believed to have originated in South Africa, where the original Omicron strain was also first sighted. Unlike previous subvariants of the highly infectious strains, they are thought to be able to evade the natural immunity provided by previous omicron infection.
This poses a major challenge for public health officials, as many who should have been protected from infection for months can suddenly unexpectedly become reinfected and trigger a further surge.
However, the rise of these variants has not yet had a major impact on case numbers. Daily infections are up 10 percent to 109,384 per day, a range it has stayed in over the past month. The US is also registering 398 deaths per day, a 14 percent increase from the week.
BA.5 (dark green) and BA.4 (light green) together now account for more than half of active Covid cases in the US
Unlike previous strains of the virus, which spread primarily from east to west in the United States, BA.4 and BA.5 are more common on the West Coast than the East Coast
The BA.5 variant now accounts for 36.6 percent of sequenced cases, according to the CDC, trailing only BA 2.12.1 (42 percent of sequenced cases) as the most prevalent strain nationwide. BA.4, which shares many of the same features as BA.5, accounts for 15.7 percent of cases.
Every single case sequenced in the US is a form of the Omicron variant, as the highly infectious strain that emerged in late 2021 wiped out other versions of the virus.
The once-dominant BA.2 “stealth” variant now accounts for less than six percent of US Covid cases. The original BA.1 omicron strain is no longer detected.
The tribes have alerted health authorities after initial data from South Africa showed a person’s natural immunity from previous infection is not as effective against them as against other strains.
While their surge has yet to impact national case counts, some experts are warning that more localized outbreaks are on the way.
In New York City, Dr. Jay Varma, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s former health adviser, said BA.5 could be the reason case counts have stopped falling in the country’s largest city.
‘The decline in reported [COVID-19] Cases in NYC has stopped. Reported cases are on a high plateau, meaning actual transmission is very high considering the >20x undercount. This is likely the start of a BA.5 wave,” he said in a tweet.
BA.5 accounts for nearly one in three cases in the New York and New Jersey area, according to CDC data. BA.4 accounts for nearly 12 percent of cases, while BA 2.12.1 remains dominant.
Unlike common Covid strains, which take root along the east coast before spreading west over time, these two strains first took root on the other side of the country.
BA.5 accounts for 36 percent of sequenced cases along the West Coast and 38 percent in the Pacific Northwest. It is most prevalent in the Dust Bowl, where it accounts for 41 percent of the cases sequenced, and in the Southwest, where it sits at 40 percent.
New strains that break the general rules of the pandemic — that once a person is infected they cannot catch the virus again for some time — are changing the calculus of the viral response.
Fearing the new strains, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to introduce reformulated COVID-19 vaccines that specifically target the Omicron variant.
By a 19-2 vote, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) approved plans to introduce reformulated vaccines this fall — citing the Omicron variant’s vaccine-resistant characteristics.
All currently available versions of the COVID-19 vaccines are formulated after the original Wuhan strain that emerged two years ago.
While they are still effective in most cases to prevent serious infection or death, the Omicron variant has been mutated to avoid front-end protection against infection.
This change allows both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to start distributing newly formulated injections that should be able to prevent infection by the Omicron variant – along with previous versions of the virus.
The FDA is expected to follow its advisers’ example and issue an emergency use authorization for the new injections sometime this week.
After the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the recordings are also likely to be approved.
dr Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, the FDA’s top regulator of vaccines, said Tuesday morning he hopes to have the new vaccines available as early as October this year.
