Health officials are keeping tabs on yet another omicron subvariant that they are concerned may circumvent protections from vaccination and previous COVID-19 infection.
“In countries like India, a new sub-lineage of BA 2.75 has also been detected, which we’re following,” World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference last week.
The omicron subvariant BA 2.75, also known as Centaurus, is in 10 other countries, including the United States.
“It’s still too early to know if this subvariant has properties of additional immune evasion or indeed of being more clinically severe. We don’t know that, but we have to wait and see, and of course, we’re tracking it,” WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said in a video shared on Twitter.
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In the meantime, the highly contagious BA.5 omicron subvariant accounts for a little more than half of the cases in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“If you had omicron a couple weeks ago, you can get reinfected now,” CBS News medical contributor Dr. David Agus said on “CBS Evening News” Sunday night.
Although there have been spikes in COVID-19 cases, experts say there has been a decoupling of transmission rates as well as hospitalizations and deaths.
“We’re at a controllable situation now, and that’s good,” said Agus. “That’s partly because of these vaccines. We have to get better at our booster campaign, and that is very, very clear. And in certain circumstances, we may have to change our behavior by wearing masks and other things.”
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