If you’re reaching for your mask again (or you never stopped wearing it in the first place), we don’t blame you. A new omicron subvariant—called BA.5—is now the dominant SARS-CoV-2 strain in the United States, and early reports suggest it is spreading quickly and widely. Hotspots have emerged in the Northeast and Midwest, according to a New York Times analysis, but COVID-19 cases are on the rise nationwide.
A lot of questions are swirling about BA.5, but how worried should you be? Here, SELF breaks down the most important questions so you can stay safe.
Is BA.5 the most contagious subvariant yet?
In short: Yes. “BA.5 gets an A-plus for contagiousness,” William Shaffner, M.D., a professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, tells SELF. “It’s more transmissible than its parent, omicron, which makes it about as transmissible as our most contagious viruses. There have been some of my colleagues who compared it to measles, to which we give the gold medal.”
Given that BA.5 is also now the dominant SARS-CoV-2 strain in the U.S., that correlates to rising case counts in many parts of the country. Some areas, like New York City, have upgraded their transmission levels to “high.” Local health officials have asked residents to take precautions, like wearing a mask in public and testing before and after travel.
But case numbers are on the rise nationally. This time last year, there were about 29,000 new cases reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) per day; currently, the average number of new cases per day is around 132,000. This number is likely much lower than the actual number of cases, experts speculate, potentially due to the use of at-home rapid tests.
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BA.5 also appears to reinfect people who have previously had a COVID-19 infection. “That allows it to really move widely through the community,” Dr. Shaffner says. He likens COVID-19 reinfection to a “relatively minor illness, like a bad cold” for the average, healthy person—but the symptoms can greatly vary from person to person, and even reinfection can potentially cause severe illness. It’s not yet clear whether health issues compound with each COVID infection a person has, but a preliminary study suggests that people who’ve been infected more than twice are at increased risk of severe illness or death. And every COVID infection carries the risk of developing long COVID, per the CDC.
Dr. Shaffner says it’s not yet clear how quickly you can be reinfected with BA.5, but he puts it in the range of weeks, rather than months.
What are the main symptoms of BA.5 so far?
Dr. Shaffner emphasizes that any data on specific BA.5 symptoms is anecdotal so far, as there haven’t been any large-scale studies on the symptoms of this subvariant yet.
“We’re hearing a lot about back and neck aches and pains,” Dr. Shaffner says. (Online, some people have shared that recent symptoms mimic those of meningitis, such as stiff neck and a severe headache.) “It’s all anecdotal, but as people have looked at previous variants, the distinctions between the variants have not been very large.”
Source: SELF
