The first case of a new one on November 9, 2021 covid variant was detected South Africa, On 26 November, with cases rising in that country, the World Health Organization declared This is a “concern form” given the potentially increased communicativeness. they called it omicron,
By December 1, the first cases were found in the US and the version – later dubbed BA.1 – quickly out-performed all others and resulted in the daily American Affairs Going from about 120,000 to over 800,000 six weeks later. COVID-related deaths, a trailing indicator, nearly doubled as BA.1, from around 1,300 a day on January 29, to just under 2,600, To Johns Hopkins University.
According to data submitted to global GISAID, this scenario could resurface this week as the first cases of two potentially even more-permeable Omicron offshoots, which were first detected in South Africa, have been identified in the US. . database And Parse by Outbreak.info.
The number of cases of the new subtypes identified in the US is still incredibly low; ten cases of BA.4 have been registered and four cases have been registered BA.5, But if they are indeed more permeable than the current winner BA.2, there could be a rapid spread.
BA.4 was first identified in sequenced cases in South Africa on January 10, 2022, To outbreak.info. That country was also the first to recognize BA.5 on 26 February. They currently make up 6% and 5%, respectively, of the cases sequenced in the country since they were detected. It’s not much, but it looks like South Africa has only sequenced 1,000 tests a month since January. By comparison, California, which has about 20 million fewer residents than South Africa, sequence Somewhere in the range of 12,000 tests a month.
Cases in South Africa have started increasing in the last 10 days. according to this country’s health department. In that period, the number of new daily cases jumped between 800 and 1,800 in the week ended April 17, to more than 6,500 yesterday.
Whether the US sees its own BA.4/BA.5 jump remains to be seen, but it is already seeing a BA.2-related increase from the 7-day average of 26,675 new cases on April 1. As of April 29, it has gone up to 60,809. Hospitalizations and Covid-related deaths have also started to rise.