The latest offshoot of the Omicron strain, the BA.5 variant, has quickly become dominant in the United States, driving a wave of new cases across the country due to its elusiveness to the human immune system, the Washington Post reported Sunday. .
The magnitude of this surge is unclear at this time, with most sufferers tending to test themselves at home or not test themselves at all, the article said, noting that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Diseases (CDC) of the United States last week reported an average of just over 100,000 new cases per day.
Infectious disease experts know, however, that figure is vastly underestimated compared to the true number, which could be as high as 1 million, said Eric Topol, a professor at the Scripps Research Institute who tracks epidemic trends closely.
Antibodies from vaccination or previous coronavirus infections offer limited protection against the BA.5 variant, leading Topol to call it “the worst version of the virus we’ve seen”.
“There is a broad consensus among infectious disease experts that this is a dangerous virus, which causes disease of unpredictable severity. And they all agree that the country is not doing not enough to limit transmission,” the article adds.