With the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants rising, the U.S. may be stuck with high levels of infection and reinfection for a while
A lot of people will still be seeing the dreaded double line this summer. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images A new COVID wave now fueled by four Omicron subvariants continues to drive up infections throughout the country. Though there are signs that the surge in the Northeast has begun to stabilize, infections are on the rise in other regions and the level of community transmission remains high across the vast majority of the country.
The ability of BA.4 and BA.5 to outcompete BA.2.12.1 will become clear very soon, now that they are starting to get a foothold in places like New York where the spread of BA.2.12.1 has been rampant. CNN additionally reports that data out of the U.K. found that the sister subvariants were spreading faster there than BA.2.12.1 was. “The betting favorite now suggests that BA.4 and BA.5 would be able to take out BA.2.12.
The other issue is that nobody really knows how many infections this wave is producing — and that will likely remain unclear, both for this and future waves. The wave is undoubtedly much larger than confirmed case counts indicate, since they don’t include all the unreported infections detected by now-ubiquitous at-home COVID tests.