Are the people in your life contracting the coronavirus despite having been exposed to an earlier wave?
It’s not just you. The onset of summer has generated new worries regarding the COVID-19 outlook in California for the third consecutive year.
The growing dominance of two subvariants, BA.5 and, to a lesser extent, BA.4, which are not only extremely contagious but have also demonstrated the ability to reinfect persons who contracted previous Omicron strains, is the most recent development upending the pandemic landscape.
What issues do BA.4 and BA.5 raise?
Both subvariants have a high transmission rate. The concern is that characteristic, coupled with their apparent ability to reinfect, could lengthen or intensify California’s coronavirus outbreak, which has already been present for months.
BA.5 is of particular significance. The Scripps Research Translational Institute’s director, Dr. Eric Topol, recently referred to it as “the worst variant of the virus that we’ve encountered.”
