The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Tuesday that the newest omicron subvariant BA.5 accounts for the majority of covid-19 cases in the United States.
New data showed BA.5 is estimated to have caused nearly 54% of COVID infections in the U.S. last week. The strain has also shown its ability to evade immunity from both prior infection and vaccination.
The highly contagious BA.5, along with a related subvariant known as BA.4, has fueled a new wave of coronavirus infections across the country.
Still, health officials say vaccines offer important protection against severe diseases and hospitalization and recommend people get boosted if they haven’t done so.
“The Omicron subvariant BA.5 is the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen,” Dr. Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research said last week.
“It takes immune escape, already extensive, to the next level, and, as a function of that, enhanced transmissibility, well beyond Omicron (BA.1) and other Omicron family variants that we’ve seen.” he continued.
Just last week, the FDA advised vaccine makers to target the highly transmissible BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants in their updated vaccines.
