Both federal and local health experts have raised Dallas County’s COVID-19 alert levels as the highly contagious COVID-19 variant BA.5 causes both case counts...
BA.5 is most similar to BA.2, another omicron subvariant that picked up speed in Texas in March, although it has a few additional mutations on its spike protein, said Dr. Jeff SoRelle, an assistant professor of pathology at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Eventually, most immune systems catch on to the virus, but the mutations “give it enough of a chance to sneak past the defenses and start causing some trouble,” SoRelle said.original omicron strainWhile the loss of taste and smell were tell-tale signs of COVID-19 infection with the alpha and delta variants, they’re much less likely with infections from omicron and its subvariants.
“As a clinician, I would say it’s less severe, but as a person, I still don’t want to get it because I don’t want to be knocked out for a week with a flu-like illness,” he said. Kids 6 months to 4 years old can now get a child-sized dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while anyone age 5 and older can receive a booster dose. People who are older than 50 or are older than 12 and immunocompromised can get a second booster dose at least four months after their first.The Food and Drug Administration has asked vaccine makers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to develop vaccine boosters that target BA.4 and BA.