Topline
The highly transmissible BA.2 Omicron variant comprised more than half of COVID-19 infections last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday, as experts say they believe a new wave of coronavirus cases in the U.S. is unlikely.
A health care worker holds a vial of Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination health center
Key Facts
BA.2 cases made up almost 55 percent of infections for the week ending on March 26, according to new weekly data released by the CDC on Tuesday.
That’s up from the 39 percent of cases the BA.2 variant accounted for during the week ending in March 19.
The variant has also become the dominant COVID-19 strain worldwide.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The Washington Post last week that unless “something changes dramatically,” the U.S. is unlikely to see a “major surge.”
Daily coronavirus infections are on the rise in some states, with overall cases across the U.S. plateauing.
Key Background
Scientists first discovered the new version of Omicron in November. Since then, cases of BA.2 have spiked in the U.S. and around the world, with some countries in Europe and Asia seeing a surge in cases. Experts say evidence so far suggests the BA.2 version may be more transmissible than other Omicron variants but is not more likely to cause severe disease. Some scientists have nicknamed BA.2 “stealth omicron” because of a mutation that makes the variant harder to distinguish from delta variants on PCR tests.
Further Reading
Omicron: What We Know About the Dominant Coronavirus Variant (The New York Times)
As BA.2 grows in the US, experts look to other countries to predict its impact here (CNN)
U.S. Covid Cases Plateau After Months Of Declines—And Rise In Some States (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/madelinehalpert/2022/03/29/ba2-omicron-variant-becomes-dominant-in-us-cdc-says/