Since early May, the metric has shot up — with 10,409 weekly reinfections reported from mid-May to mid-June. That timeline roughly corresponds with when BA.4 and BA.5 started to circulate more widely.
LOS ANGELES — The growing dominance of two new ultra-contagious omicron subvariants is prolonging a wave of coronavirus cases in California and sparking growing concerns from health officials that coming weeks could see significant spread and increased hospitalizations.
“There also have been some concerning findings in laboratory studies, which found that BA.4 and BA.5 were better able to infect lung cells than the earlier BA.2 subvariant of omicron,” she said. “BA.4 and BA.5 are of special concern because of their apparent ability to cause reinfections in people who were already infected with other omicron subvariants,” Ferrer said.
“It is likely that increases in the total number of reinfections is a result of changes in the epidemiology of COVID-19, trends in case rates and vaccination,” as well as improvements in the realm of data compilation, including the implementation in February of automated processing for new reinfections, the California Department of Public Health said in a statement to the L.A. Times.
Previous waves have come to a close because the coronavirus hit a wall, stalling when enough people were vaccinated, had been infected or were altering their behavior to an extent that the virus was deprived of vulnerable hosts. “I’m concerned because we are seeing more BA.4 and BA.5 in our population, and that could be why we’re sort of treading water at such a high level of transmission,” Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer for the L.A. County Department of Public Health, said during a recent briefing.
That still-potent spread can be chalked up to several factors, including residents who have largely abandoned infection-prevention measures and returned to pre-pandemic habits, the emergence of ever-more-contagious strains and the waning of virus immunity. “With more immune-evasive variants, that could be the case for many of us once again, and soon,” Karan wrote.
It’s a risk he’s all too familiar with. His wife is still contending with symptoms weeks after she was initially infected.