{"id":5060,"date":"2022-07-08T17:31:38","date_gmt":"2022-07-08T17:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=5060"},"modified":"2022-07-08T17:31:38","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T17:31:38","slug":"this-new-ninja-covid-variant-is-the-most-dangerous-one-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=5060","title":{"rendered":"This New \u2018Ninja\u2019 COVID Variant Is the Most Dangerous One Yet, Says Who?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a>Authors: David Axe Fri, July 8, 2022 Yahoo News<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Will People Realize That COVID is Here To Stay? Live With It!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest subvariant of the novel coronavirus<\/a> to become dominant in Europe, the United States, and other places is also, in many ways, the worst so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BA.5 subvariant of the basic Omicron variant<\/a> appears to be more contagious than any previous form of the virus. It\u2019s apparently better at dodging our antibodies, too\u2014meaning it might be more likely to cause breakthrough and repeat infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vaccines and boosters<\/a> are still the best defense. There are even Omicron-specific booster jabs in development that, in coming months, could make the best vaccines more effective against BA.5 and its genetic cousins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, BA.5\u2019s ongoing romp across half the planet is a strong reminder that the COVID pandemic isn\u2019t over. \u201cWe\u2019re not done yet, by any stretch,\u201d Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, wrote on his Substack<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

High levels of at least partial immunity from vaccines and past infection continue to prevent the worst outcomes\u2014mass hospitalization and death. But globally, raw case numbers are surging<\/a>, with serious implications for potentially millions of people who face a growing risk of long-term illness<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally worrying, the latest wave of infections is giving the coronavirus the time and space it needs to mutate into even more dangerous variants and subvariants. \u201cThe development of variants now is a freight train,\u201d Irwin Redlener, the founding director of Columbia University\u2019s National Center for Disaster Preparedness, told The Daily Beast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, unstoppable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BA.5 first turned up in viral samples in South Africa in February. By May it was dominant in Europe and Israel, displacing earlier forms of the basic Omicron variant while also driving an increase in global daily COVID cases from around 477,000 a day in early June to 820,000 a day this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In late June, BA.5 became dominant in the United States. Cases haven\u2019t increased yet\u2014the daily average has hovered around 100,000 since May. But that could change in coming weeks as BA.5 continues to outcompete less transmissible subvariants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Topol offered a concise explanation for BA.5\u2019s ascendancy. Where the mutations that produced many earlier variants mostly affected the spike protein\u2014the part of the virus that helps it to grab onto and infect our cells\u2014BA.5 has mutations across <\/em>its structure. \u201cBA.5 is quite distinct and very fit, representing marked difference from all prior variants,\u201d Topol wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BA.5\u2019s widespread mutations made the subvariant less recognizable to all those antibodies we\u2019ve built up from vaccines, boosters and past infection. BA.5 has been able to slip past our immune systems, ninja-style, contributing to the rising rate of breakthrough cases and reinfections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comes as no surprise to epidemiologists who\u2019ve warned for many months now that persistently high case-rates\u2014which they largely attribute in part to a stubborn anti-vax minority in many countries\u2014would facilitate ever more infectious and evasive variants and subvariant. The more infections, the more chances for significant mutations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that sense, BA5 might be a preview of the months and years to come. A year ago, we had a chance to block SARS-CoV-2\u2019s main transmission vectors through vaccines and social distancing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we didn\u2019t. Restrictions on businesses, schools and crowds have become politically toxic all over the world. Vaccination rates remained stubbornly low, even in many countries with easy access to jabs. In the U.S., for example, the percentage of fully vaccinated has stalled at around 67 percent<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Massive Screwup That Could Let COVID Bypass Our Vaccines<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So COVID lingers, 31 months after the first case was diagnosed in Wuhan, China. The longer the virus circulates, the more variants it produces. BA.5 is the all but inevitable result of that tragic dynamic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation isn\u2019t entirely hopeless. Yes, BA.5 seems to reduce the effectiveness of the best messenger-RNA vaccines. Vaccine-maker Moderna published data<\/a> indicating that a booster shot it\u2019s developing specifically for Omicron and its offspring works only a third as well against BA.5 compared to earlier subvariants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But vaccines, boosters and past infection still offer meaningful, if reduced, protection against BA.5. \u201cEven a boost of the original genome, or a recent infection, will [produce] some cross-protective antibodies to lessen the severity of a new Omicron subvariant infection,\u201d Eric Bortz, a University of Alaska-Anchorage virologist and public-health expert, told The Daily Beast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more additional jabs you get on top of your prime course, the better protected you are. Arguably the best protection results from two prime jabs of the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna plus a couple boosters. \u201cGet your damn fourth shot!\u201d Redlener said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem, in the United States, is that only people 50 years old or older or with certain immune disorders qualify for a second booster. And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration won\u2019t say whether, or when, it might authorize second boosters for younger people. \u201cI have nothing to share at this time,\u201d an FDA spokesperson told The Daily Beast when asked about boosters for under-50s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an obvious bureaucratic screw-up. As many as a million booster doses are about to expire in the U.S., all for a want of takers. \u201cA profound waste, which should be made available to all people, age under-50 who seek added protection,\u201d Topol wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be fair, Pfizer and Moderna are both working on new boosters that they\u2019ve tailored specifically for Omicron subvariants. On June 30, an FDA advisory board endorsed these variant-specific boosters. The FDA announced<\/a> it might approve them for emergency use for some Americans as early as this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s a risk these jabs will show up too late, especially if they\u2019re highly optimized for just one recent subvariant and thus ineffective against future subvariants. \u201cVariant-chasing is a flawed approach,\u201d Topol wrote. \u201cBy the time a BA.5 vaccine booster is potentially available, who knows what will be the predominant strain?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, there are fallbacks. Masks and voluntary social-distancing, of course. Post-infection therapies including the antiviral drug paxlovid also help. \u201cThis is not a time to abandon non-pharmaceutical intervention,\u201d Redlener stressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But voluntary mask-wearing and paxlovid are bandaids on a festering global wound. The surge in BA.5 infections creates the conditions for the next<\/em> major subvariant\u2014BA.6, if you will. It might be even worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s looking more and more likely that COVID will be with us, well, forever<\/em>. \u201cCOVID is becoming like the flu,\u201d Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington Institute for Health, told The Daily Beast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is, endemic. An ever-present threat to public health. The big difference, of course, is that COVID is much more dangerous than today\u2019s flu<\/a>. And it keeps mutating in ways that make it even worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authors: David Axe Fri, July 8, 2022 Yahoo News When Will People Realize That COVID is Here To Stay? Live With It! The latest subvariant of the novel coronavirus to become dominant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,346],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ba-5-covid","category-mutations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}