Omicron BA.5 makes up 82% of COVID variants in U.S. - CDC

Reuters

Published Jul 26, 2022 09:23AM ET

(Reuters) - The BA.5 subvariant of Omicron was estimated to make up 81.9% of the circulating coronavirus variants in the United States for the week ended July 23, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Tuesday.

This was higher than the 75.9% prevalence estimated in the preceding week.

BA.5 has been driving a surge of new infections globally and has shown to be particularly good at evading the immune protection afforded either by vaccination or prior infection.

Omicron subvariant BA.4 was estimated to make up 12.9% of the circulating variants in the United States, the data showed.