New Omicron Sub-Variant Majority of US Cases, Corona 3rd Leading Cause of Death, World Covid Stats

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New subvariant now a majority of US COVID cases 

© AP

A new omicron subvariant known as BA.5 now comprises a majority of U.S. COVID-19 cases, according to data released Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The data is a sign of the rise of the highly transmissible subvariant, which has prompted concern about a new increase in cases.

BA.5, along with a related subvariant known as BA.4, has mutations that have shown an increased ability to evade the protection from vaccines and previous infection.

  • BA.5 now makes up 53.6 percent of U.S. cases, according to the CDC.
  • BA.4 makes up another 16.5 percent, putting the two together at around 70 percent of infections.

New vaccines coming: The Food and Drug Administration last week advised vaccine makers to target the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants in updated vaccines they are preparing for this fall.

But waiting is risky: Celine Gounder, an infectious disease expert at New York University, stressed that people should not wait for the updated vaccines to be available to get a booster shot.

“The updated vaccines won’t be available until October at the earliest,” she wrote. “That’s 4+ months away. That’s a big window of risk.”

Only about half of adults who received the initial two shots have received their booster, according to the CDC, leaving them more vulnerable to the new subvariants.

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COVID THIRD LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH MARCH 2020-OCTOBER 2021

COVID-19 was the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. between March 2020 and October 2021, according to an analysis of federal data published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

  • Researchers at the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, analyzed death certificate data and found that the coronavirus accounted for 350,000 deaths — 1 in every 8 — in the U.S. during that 20-month period.
  • Compared with 2020, deaths from COVID-19 in 2021 decreased in ranking among those aged 85 years and older but increased in ranking among those aged 15 to 54 years and became the leading cause of death among those aged 45 to 54 years.

Among those aged 85 and older, the coronavirus was the second-leading cause of death in 2020 but dropped to third in 2021, likely because of targeted vaccination efforts in this age group.

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WORLD COVID STATS

Coronavirus Cases:

556,529,235

Deaths:

6,364,683

Recovered:

530,896,847
Highlighted in green
= all cases have recovered from the infection

 

 

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