BA.4 and BA.5 are the newest COVID-19 subvariants on the block, and they are infecting more and more people in the latest spike of cases to hit the country.
Byproducts of Omicron, BA.4 and BA.5 are reportedly now the fastest-spreading COVID-19 subvariants so far. On top of that, as of July 2, it was recorded that BA.5 accounts for nearly 54 percent of the COVID-19 cases in the U.S. right now. Not only are the variants spreading quickly, but even if you’re vaccinated, the strains are harder to evade.
NBC 5 Chicago reports BA. 4 and BA.5 are three times less sensitive to being disarmed by the current COVID-19 vaccines than the original Omicron variant, BA.1 and are four times more resistant to the antibodies found in vaccines compared to BA.2. BA.2 took the spot of Omicron as the most dominant variant in the country back in April.
If you were one of the people who caught COVID-19’s Delta strain back in 2020 or Omicron BA.1 last winter, as your previous immunity from older strain infections won’t protect you from the newest strain, BA.5. The key symptoms of BA.5 are a runny nose, fever, coughing, sore throat, headaches, muscle pain and fatigue.
“The good news is that the vast majority of breakthrough infections now are outpatient illnesses. They are not resulting in the kind of severe illness that we saw earlier in the pandemic when no one had immunity, which led to increased hospitalizations and deaths,” said Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at UC Davis Children’s Hospital.
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