The closely related subvariants represented a combined 13% of U.S. cases for the week ended June 4, according to estimates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Tuesday. Evidence suggests the variants are yet-more contagious versions of Omicron, public-health experts said, that may be able to evade some of the immune protections people built up from infections triggered by another version of Omicron during the winter…
The CDC estimated BA.4 and BA.5 represent the highest percentage of cases in a region that includes Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. The percentages for these subvariants were lowest in the Northeast, the agency estimated.
The dominant Omicron variant in the U.S. remains BA.2.12.1, which the CDC recently estimated at about 62% of cases following months of steady growth. This version helped fuel a surge in cases that began mainly in the Northeast in the spring and has since spread to other parts of the country. Parts of the western U.S. have recently come under pressure while numbers improve in the Northeast.
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