‘Immune-evading’ BA.5 subvariant now accounts for 65% of U.S. COVID cases – By Dylan Stableford and Andrew Romano (Yahoo News) / July 12, 2022
Top U.S. health officials warned Tuesday that a surge of COVID-19 cases driven by the highly transmissible Omicron subvariant BA.5 has arrived, but stressed that the country has the tools — like vaccines and antiviral treatments — to prevent people from getting seriously ill.
“We know how to manage it,” Dr. Ashish Jha, coordinator of the White House’s COVID-19 response, said at a virtual press briefing. “We can prevent serious illness. We can save lives and we can minimize disruptions caused by COVID-19.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the BA.5 subvariant now accounts for 65% of current COVID-19 cases in the United States.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and chief medical adviser to President Biden, said that BA.5 “substantially evades neutralizing antibodies” induced in people who have been vaccinated or previously infected.
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