ALERT: WHO Reports Worst COVID-19 Variant

The most contagious and transmissible COVID-19 variant to date has arrived nearly two and a half years after the pandemic’s start.

Repeated COVID-19 waves have left millions of people dead, with only vaccines helping to blunt the toll. The virus is currently re-expanding, evading immunity, and increasing the number of cases and hospitalizations. The pandemic is still far from over, as evidenced by the presence of BA.5, the most recent iteration of its shape-shifting.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the newest Omicron offshoot and a closely related variant, BA.4, are driving a 30% increase in cases worldwide over the past two weeks.

According to Dr. Michael Ryan, the executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, the Omicron subvariants are responsible for a 25% increase in cases in Europe, but that number may actually be higher given the “almost collapse in testing.” 

Concerns that China’s major cities may soon re-enforce strict lockdown measures that were only recently lifted have increased as BA.5 is moving through the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the same variant has also taken over as the predominant strain in the United States, where it accounted for 65% of new infections last week.

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Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator, said:

We have been watching this virus evolve rapidly. We’ve been planning and preparing for this moment. And the message that I want to get across to the American people is this: BA.5 is something we’re closely monitoring, and most importantly, we know how to manage it.

On the same day, COVID-19 was still listed by WHO’s Emergency Committee as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the highest level of alert it has ever issued. This was due to an increase in cases, ongoing viral mutation, and mounting pressure on already overburdened healthcare systems. The committee, which is made up of independent experts, highlighted difficulties with the ongoing global COVID-19 response, such as a decline in testing and patchy genome sequencing, raising the question of just how precisely any country might reasonably be able to monitor BA.5.

According to epidemiologists, official data drastically underestimate the actual number of infections in the US, leaving the country with a crucial blind spot as the most contagious coronavirus variant yet spreads. One million new infections per day are estimated by some experts to occur in the general US population, which is ten times the number reported by the government.