A pair of omicron subvariants which are descendants of BA.5 are making inroads within the U.S. variant scene, in line with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 were chargeable for greater than 11% of COVID-19 infections this week, in line with CDC’s weekly variant proportions update posted on Friday. The pair was chargeable for lower than 1% of infections a month ago.
The pair was previously aggregated with BA.5 within the CDC update but have now been separated, decreasing BA.5’s prevalence to about 68% of coronavirus cases this week.
The fast rise of BQ.1.1, which has mutations that likely make it particularly good at evading prior immunity, “sets it as much as be the principal driver of next US wave within the weeks ahead,” according to Eric Topol, founding father of the Scripps Research Translational Institute.
U.S. health officials have been pushing updated booster shots that focus on omicron and its subvaraints ahead of an expected coronavirus surge in the autumn and winter. Coronavirus cases in Europe are on the rise, which generally predicts a rise within the U.S. in a matter of weeks.
“We’re more likely to see a recent, substantial increase in infections here in the USA within the later fall and winter because we have seen it each of the last two years,” White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha recently said.
In response to Jha, the updated shots “should provide a much higher level of protection against infection, against transmission, and definitely against serious illness and hospitalizations and deaths.”
The Food and Drug Administration this week expanded authorization of the shots to children as young as 5 years old, citing concerns over exposure risks as kids are back in class and resuming other activities.
But uptake of the shots thus far has been low, fueled by confusion over eligibility and fatigue over COVID-19 messaging usually.
The Biden administration, nonetheless, is adamant that there continues to be time to show the rollout around.
“At first when the vaccines rolled out in September, we expected September to be a month where it might just start picking up,” Jha said at a press briefing on Tuesday. “After which, again, we might really expect vaccination to start out happening in October.”
