The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claim that BA.5, an Omicron subvariant, also known as ‘Ninja’, is now the dominant covid strain in the United States.
Ninja is also allegedly the “most dangerous” variant yet and is set to become dominant in Europe and other places according to reports.
The corporate media is propagating another campaign in an attempt to be against the fear of another variant as the federal government attempts to use the ‘virus’ to perpetuate an indefinite state of emergency.
Yahoo News reports: The BA.5 subvariant of the basic Omicron variant appears to be more contagious than any previous form of the virus. It’s apparently better at dodging our antibodies, too—meaning it might be more likely to cause breakthrough and repeat infections.
Vaccines and boosters are still the best defense. There are even Omicron-specific booster jabs in development that, in coming months, could make the best vaccines more effective against BA.5 and its genetic cousins.
Still, BA.5’s ongoing romp across half the planet is a strong reminder that the COVID pandemic isn’t over. “We’re not done yet, by any stretch,” Eric Topol, founder, and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California wrote on his Substack.
High levels of at least partial immunity from vaccines and past infection continue to prevent the worst outcomes—mass hospitalization and death. But globally, raw case numbers are surging, with serious implications for potentially millions of people who face a growing risk of long-term illness.
Equally worrying, the latest wave of infections is giving the coronavirus the time and space it needs to mutate into even more dangerous variants and subvariants. “The development of variants now is a freight train,” Irwin Redlener, the founding director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness, told The Daily Beast.
In other words, unstoppable.
BA.5 first turned up in viral samples in South Africa in February. By May it was dominant in Europe and Israel, displacing earlier forms of the basic Omicron variant while also driving an increase in global daily COVID cases from around 477,000 a day in early June to 820,000 a day this week.
