The U.S. faces not less than seven different versions of Covid-19 omicron because the nation heads into winter when health officials expect one other wave of viral infections.
Although the omicron BA.5 variant stays dominant within the country, it’s beginning to lose some ground to other versions of the virus, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published on Friday.
Omicron BA.5 has splintered into several recent but related variants that include BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and BF.7. The U.K. Health Security Agency, in a report earlier this month, said these three variants are demonstrating a growth advantage over BA.5, which was probably the most contagious version up to now.
Within the U.S., omicron BA.5 makes up about 68% of all recent infections, down from about 80% firstly of October. BQ.1, BQ.1.1 and BF.7 at the moment are causing about 17% of recent infections combined, based on the CDC data.
About 3% of recent infections are attributable to BA.2.75. and BA.2.75.2, that are related to the omicron BA.2 variant that caused a bump in cases throughout the spring but was pushed out.
Scientists at Peking University in China found that omicron BA.2.75.2 and BQ.1.1 were probably the most adept at evading immunity from prior BA.5 infection and a number of other antibody drugs. The study, published earlier in October, has not been peer reviewed.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Covid response coordinator, said earlier this week that U.S. health officials are closely monitoring these variants because they’re good at evading prior immunity.
“The explanation we’re tracking them is because they either have so much more immune invasiveness or they render a lot of our treatments ineffective,” Jha said. “Those are the 2 major things that get our attention.”
But Jha said the brand new omicron boosters that the U.S. began rolling out last month should provide higher protection than the first-generation vaccines against these emerging variants. The boosters goal BA.5 and the emerging variants are all omicron and most descend from BA.5.
Jha called on all eligible Americans to get the brand new boosters by Halloween so they may have full protection for Thanksgiving when family holiday gatherings kick into full swing.
However the scientists at Peking University said the immune evasiveness of variants like BA.2.75.2 and BQ.1.1 could mean that the BA.5 booster shots is not going to provide sufficiently broad protection.
It’s unclear how way more effective the boosters will prove in the actual world. The Food and Drug Administration authorized the shots without direct human data, relying as an alternative on clinical trials from an identical shot that was developed against the unique version of omicron, BA.1.
Pfizer and BioNTech on Thursday published the primary human data from their BA.5 shots. They triggered a big boost to the immune system against omicron BA.5 in a lab study that checked out blood samples from adults ages 18 and older, the businesses said.
