Omicron subvariant B.A. 5 quickly becoming the dominant strain in Arizona abc15
In the first two years of the pandemic, much of COVID-19 coverage was dedicated to different variants. The UK, now known as alpha, and delta were the two dominant variants that were responsible for two of Arizona’s three COVID-19 surges. Now, coverage of COVID-19 has shifted to subvariants of Omicron. The latest and most contagious so far is B.A. 5.
The laboratory T-Gen is the state’s largest sequencer of COVID-19. At the beginning of June, B.A. 5 was only 11% of genomes. During the last week of June, it increased to over half. “COVID-19 will continue to shift just enough so it can continue to spread and evade our immunity and B.A. 5 allows it to do that,” Engelthaler said. “It’s not more dangerous, we’re not seeing more serious cases at all in the hospitals."
Daily hospitalizations for COVID-19 are up since early May, with hospitals now frequently reporting about 700 COVID-19 occupied beds. ICU figures are also up slightly in the same period. However, even with the rise, hospitalizations are substantially lower than the winter surge, which itself was about half the size of the 2021 winter surge.
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