New Omicron variant may bring 2nd-largest pandemic wave to US

The new BA.5 Omicron sub-variant may bring the second-largest wave of the pandemic to the US as nearly all COVID-19 restrictions have been relaxed in public, according to The Guardian.

"COVID-19 is very clearly not over. We're seeing dramatic increases in the number of cases and hospitalizations in many places throughout the United States," said Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida's College of Public Health.

There are more than one in three Americans living in the county at medium risk from COVID, and one in five are high risk, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The number of new confirmed cases every day has been more than 100,000 steadily for the past six weeks.

"The older you are, the much more likely you are to be hospitalized," said Salemi. "But hospitalizations are increasing for every age group."

The variant has immune-evasive properties, which could cause reinfection even after people have been vaccinated or infected before, said the article.

"BA.4 and 5 are potentially the variants that can break through immunity the easiest," said Tulio de Oliveira, director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation at Stellenbosch University and the lead of the Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa. They are "very capable of reinfection".