YALEMEDICINE.ORG (https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/5-things-to-know-omicron)
COVID-19 has moved at a rapid pace since Omicron surfaced last Thanksgiving and spread like wildfire. Since then, multiple Omicron subvariants have emerged. In early July 2022, a strain called BA.5—the most contagious one so far along with BA.4, another subvariant—is causing more than 50% of cases, making it the predominant strain in the United States. (BA.4 accounts for about 20% of all U.S. COVID cases.)
The original Omicron strain has a relatively mild version of the virus, causing less severe disease and death than Delta, which preceded it. While scientists are still learning about BA.5, data continues to show hospitalizations to be low compared to earlier in the pandemic. So far, the same can be said of infections, based on numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But that data does not include results from home tests.
There is a third—and likely most important—question that has to do with how protective the existing vaccines will be against the new variant, says Dr. Murray. Experts are saying that the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants seem to have the ability to elude some of the antibodies produced after vaccinations and infections, including those caused by some Omicron subvariants.
In late June, a committee of experts recommended the FDA update booster shots to target BA.5 and BA.4 subvariants of Omicron, with a plan to make such boosters available later in the year. (Experts acknowledge that could be a difficult task considering how quickly new variants emerge, especially if a new highly contagious subvariant emerges in the months to come.)
CNNHEALTH (https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/14/health/omicron-ba-5-variant-immunity-severity/index.html)
The culprit this time is yet another Omicron offshoot, BA.5. It has three key mutations in its spike protein that make it both better at infecting our cells and more adept at slipping past our immune defenses.
"We do not know about the clinical severity of BA.4 and BA.5 in comparison to our other Omicron subvariants," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House Covid-19 Response Team briefing Tuesday. "But we do know it to be more transmissible and more immune-evading. People with prior infection, even with BA.1 and BA.2, are likely still at risk for BA.4 or BA.5."
The result is that we're getting sick in droves. As Americans have switched to more rapid at-home tests, official case counts -- currently hovering around 110,000 new infections a day -- reflect just a fraction of the true disease burden.
"We're looking at probably close to a million new cases a day," Dr. Peter Hotez said Monday on CNN. "This is a full-on BA.5 wave that we're experiencing this summer.
It may not seem like a very big deal, because vaccines and better treatments have dramatically cut the risk of death from Covid-19. Still, about 300 to 350 people are dying on average each day from Covid-19, enough to fill a large passenger jet.
On Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pleaded with Americans to use all available tools to stop the spread of the virus, including masking, ventilation and social distancing.
BA.2.75 has nine changes in its spike region that distinguish it from BA.2 and about 11 changes compared with BA.5, according to Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London.
In the meantime, Jha said, people should get boosters that are available to them to keep their immunity as strong as possible. US health officials emphasized that people who are boosted now will still be able to get an updated shot this fall that includes the BA.4 and BA.5 strains.
THE ATLANTIC.COM (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/07/ba5-covid-subvariants-forever/670514/)
The endless churn of variants may not stop anytime soon, unless we do something about it.
Waves are now so frequent that they’re colliding and uplifting like tectonic plates, the valleys between them filling with virological rubble.
In the United States, the fall of BA.2 and BA.2.12.1 have overlapped so tightly with the rise of BA.5 that the peaks of their surges have blended into one. And a new, ominous cousin, BA.2.75, is currently popping in several parts of the world.
Pathogens don’t spread or transform without first inhabiting hosts. But with masks, distancing, travel restrictions, and other protective measures almost entirely vanished, “we’ve given the virus every opportunity to keep doing this,” says David Martinez, a viral immunologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Note: Chapel Hill is one of the first places that were actively working on ‘gain-of-funtion’ research under Fauci and the NIH.)
Coronaviruses don’t tend to mutate terribly quickly, compared with other RNA viruses. (Note: Did they just admit that this is caused by the mRNA jabs?)
Versions of the H3N2 flu virus that have been bopping around since the ’60s are still finding new ways to reinvade us. With SARS-CoV-2, the virus-immunity arms race could also go on “very, very long,” Koelle told me. To circumvent immunity, she said, “a virus only has to be different than it was previously.” (Note: Are they admitting that this is just the normal flu?)
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-12/omicron-ba5-coronavirus)
Stunning spread of BA.5 shows why this California COVID wave is so different
“There are more copies of the virus because BA.5 has far better ability to get into cells … which may help explain why this version of the virus has caused a lot of trouble, more than other Omicron subvariants,” (Note: The spike protein from the jab as well as the hydrogel and lipid nanoparticles is what enhances the ability of cell invasion)
Over the weeklong period ending Thursday, California reported an average of more than 15,500 new coronavirus cases per day.
Note: see chart
*Represents the number of people who have received the second dose in a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine series (such as the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines) or one dose of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine.
“A lot of people were recently infected can probably get the virus, again, in three or four weeks, versus the old days, where they have a three-month window period” when reinfection is less likely, Chin-Hong said.
THE ATLANTIC via MSN (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-ba-5-wave-is-what-covid-normal-looks-like/ar-AAZyUy3?li=BBnbcA1)
The BA.5 Wave Is What COVID Normal Looks Like
After two-plus years of erupting into distinguishable peaks, the American coronavirus-case curve has a new topography: a long, never-ending plateau.
Coronaviruses don’t tend to mutate terribly quickly, compared with other RNA viruses.
And with transmission rates this high, the next variant may arrive all the sooner—and could, by chance, end up more severe. “How much do we want to restrict our own freedoms in exchange for the injury that may be caused?”
WHAT ARE THE REASONS BEHIND ALL THIS?
Political: The radical left can and will use this to steal more elections’
Greed: The pharmaceutical companies are making billions in profits and will continue to do so with more boosters going out.
Spiritual: facilitating the death of millions from the jabs and ushering in the New World Order, the anti-christ and ultimately the end times.