All the below links are in English. Excerpts are on our own.
ご参考まで取り急ぎ以下貼っておきます。
… “It’s very, very clear that immunity wanes, whether that’s immunity following infection or immunity following vaccine,” Fauci said at a White House COVID-19 press briefing. “We have good data now that if you were infected with BA.1, you really don’t have a lot of good protection against BA.4 and BA.5.”
… No significant new COVID variants have been seen since, with subvariants of Omicron—including so-called “stealth Omicron” BA.2, BA.2.12.1, and currently dominant BA.4 and BA.5 …
If you’ve had COVID in the past but haven’t had BA.5 or BA.4, coming down with one of the two is possible, if not likely—even if you’ve had another version of Omicron in the past, …
Fortune reported in May that you can expect to get COVID about once every year, based on modeling projections. At that time, the dominant variants in the U.S. were BA.2 and spin-off BA.2.12.1.
Just two months later, BA.2 has been all but banished by stealth Omicron spinoff BA.5 with help from its close sibling, BA.4. …
Those who had BA.1 were unlikely to get reinfected with BA.2 because they were enough alike, Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, recently told Fortune.
But someone who had a previous version of Omicron is “very likely” to get reinfected with BA.4 or BA.5, …
BA.5 takes some of Omicron’s worst traits—transmissibility and immune evasion—to a new level.
But it also combines them with a penchant for affecting the lungs reminiscent of the Delta variant that hit the U.S last summer and fall, according to two recent studies.
In the case of Delta, COVID tended to accumulate in and affect the lungs, potentially resulting in more severe disease. Until recently, a silver lining of Omicron has been its tendency to instead accumulate in the upper respiratory tract, causing symptoms more similar to a cold or the flu.
BA.5 is different, according to a study published June 10 on medRxiv, a Yale– and British Medical Journal–affiliated website that publishes studies not yet certified by peer review. Recent reports show BA.5 shifting back to the lower respiratory tract—at least in animal models—“with a potential increase in disease severity and infection within lung tissue,” researchers from Australia’s Kirby Institute wrote. They referenced another May preprint study that found BA.5 and close relative BA.4 replicate more efficiently in the alveoli of human lungs than so-called stealth Omicron, BA.2.
“BA.5 not only gives the virus greater antibody evasion potential, but concurrently has changed [where it tends to accumulate], along with an increased transmission potential in the community,” the Kirby Institute authors write.
The scenario calls to mind the term Deltacron, which referred to a Delta-Omicron hybrid identified in the U.S. this spring that never took off. …
“The ability to infect cells for BA.5 is more akin to Delta than the previous Omicron family of variants,” Topol wrote. …
Dr. Fauci explains why new BA.5 subvariant is concerning (Video; 07/13/2022) | @NewDay,@CNN
Here’s What You Should Know About BA.5 Symptoms and Severity as Cases Surge (07/13/2022) | @hannahsmothers_,@SELFmagazine
If you’re reaching for your mask again (or you never stopped wearing it in the first place), we don’t blame you. … Hotspots have emerged in the Northeast and Midwest, according to a New York Times analysis, but COVID-19 cases are on the rise nationwide.
… In short: yes. “BA.5 gets an A-plus for contagiousness,” William Shaffner, MD, a professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, tells SELF. “It’s more transmissible than its parent, omicron, which makes it about as transmissible as our most contagious viruses. There have been some of my colleagues who compared it to measles, to which we give the gold medal.”
… He likens COVID-19 reinfection to a “relatively minor illness, like a bad cold” for the average, healthy person—but the symptoms can greatly vary from person to person, and even reinfection can potentially cause severe illness. It’s not yet clear whether health issues compound with each COVID infection a person has, but a preliminary study suggests that people who’ve been infected more than twice are at increased risk of severe illness or death. And every COVID infection carries the risk of developing long COVID, per the CDC.
… some people have shared that recent symptoms mimic those of meningitis, such as stiff neck and a severe headache. …
Everyone is different. While one person may have a high fever and severe headache, another may have mild cold symptoms and no fever at all. It’s also not yet clear if BA.5 causes a loss of taste or smell…
The important takeaway: If you start feeling sick, assume it could be a COVID infection, especially because a new, highly infectious strain is circulating. Your first test could come back negative, but it’s important to keep testing. The CDC notes it often takes several days post-exposure for a COVID infection to return a positive test.
… Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of Scripps Research Translational Institute, described it as such in a report about the subvariant’s “takeover” in late June. “This version of the virus has caused a lot of trouble, more than other Omicron subvariants,”…
The subvariant was characterized as “a whole different animal” by UC Davis Health because it is “most easily transmissible” and has a capacity to “evade previous immunity from COVID infection and vaccination.”
It was found that BA.5 and another newer omicron subvariant, BA.4, were four times more resistant to antibody protection offered by COVID-19 vaccines compared to BA.2, according to research published July 5 in the journal Nature. …
In Topol’s report, he wrote that BA.5 and BA.4 are the “most immune-evasive variants,” based on recent studies, but BA.5 is the most transmissible of the omicron lineage.
He said BA.5 “takes immune escape, already extensive, to the next level, and, as a function of that, enhanced transmissibility, well beyond Omicron (BA.1) and other Omicron family variants that we’ve seen (including BA.1.1, BA.2, BA.2.12.1, and BA.4).”…
Dr. Nicole Van Groningen, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, told KTLA that BA.5 “tends to have this capacity for reinfection”…
… Some symptoms of omicron, according to the CDC, include:
Cough; Fever; Fatigue; Breathing troubles; Runny nose; Congestion; Sore throat; Gastrointestinal issues; Body aches; Headache
… less likely to lose their senses of taste and smell, or to experience shortness of breath, …
… A preprint study published May 26 in BioRxiv found that BA.5 and BA.4 spread more rapidly in human lung cells compared to BA.2. …
… Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of Scripps Research Translational Institute, called the new subvariant “the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen” in an online post in June. He cited its advanced ability to escape immunity and high transmission, in contrast to the original omicron and its family variants, including BA.2 and BA.4. …
According to a UC Davis Health news release, BA.5 is a “whole different animal.” It’s the most easily transmissible variant and can evade previous immunity from both infections and vaccinations. …
To prevent infection from BA.5, consider re-employing safety measures. Cohen said the practices from the beginning of the pandemic, including masking, not gathering in large groups and social distancing, likely still serve a significant purpose in preventing infection.
BA.5, Chapter 2 (07/11/2022) | @EricTopol
With BA.5, are you more likely to lose your sense of smell? (07/14/2022) | @kaitsulliva,@NBCNews
… Dr. Lauren Roland, a rhinologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, said it’s too soon to say for sure if BA.5 is causing more cases of anosmia — complete loss of smell — than the original omicron variant. …
“If you were infected with BA.1, you really don’t have a lot of good protection against BA.4/5,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, …
“I can’t answer that,” Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious-disease expert and the editor at large for public health at Kaiser Health News, said. “Because it depends on your vaccination status, your age, your health, your occupation, your living situation, etc., etc.” …
Dr. Preeti Malani, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Michigan, was willing to give a hard and fast number. “I’d say 3 out of 10,” she said, expressing mild concern about the new variant.
“BA.5 is everywhere, and if you haven’t gotten it yet, the odds are pretty” good you will,” Malani said, adding: “But if you are up to date on vaccines, the illness should be mild and without major medical consequences.”
While there’s a “high risk of exposure” to this variant, she said there were also “lots of reasons to be hopeful.” Early treatment with Paxlovid is now free for all Americans who may need it.
“With home testing and rapid connection to treatment (for those at risk of complicated infection), COVID is manageable,” Malani said.
… For those who aren’t up to date on shots, and who don’t have a COVID-19 action plan, outcomes could be bad. The European Union earlier this week released new recommendations for a second booster for all adults 60 and older, in line with what the US already recommends.
“We are currently seeing increasing COVID-19-case notification rates and an increasing trend in hospital and ICU admissions and occupancy in several countries, mainly driven by the BA.5 sublineage of Omicron,” Dr. Andrea Ammon, the director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, said.
Katelyn Jetelina, a public-health expert who runs the popular Your Local Epidemiologist blog wasn’t willing to give a single number for the entire US. She said the risk was too variable right now, based on where you live. …
… But like all risk calculations, “the number is different based on who it is being applied to,” as Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said.
“If it is a fresh lung-transplant patient, the number would be 10. For a healthy 18-year-old, it would be 0,” he said. “Risk is not one-size-fits-all.”
Omicron subvariant BA.5 highly transmissible in US (YouTube; 07/12/2022) | @GMA,@ABC
What you need to know about new Omicron offshoot (YouTube; 07/12/2022) | @CNN
What to Know About BA.5, Omicron’s Newest Subvariant (07/13/2022) | @CNETNews
Omicron and BA.5: A Guide to What We Know (07/06/2022) | @YaleMedicine
SARS-CoV-2 Variant Classifications and Definitions | @CDCgov
