Do you have to wear a mask outside? Answers to your BA.5 questions
A particularly contagious omicron subvariant is poised to become the dominant strain of coronavirus in North Carolina.
In the Southeast, BA.5 includes more than half of total COVID-19 cases, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The spread of BA.5 has caused an increase in the number of cases across the country and, so far, a slight increase in NC
Scientists are scrambling to figure out what this might mean for vaccine effectiveness, public health precautions and hospitalizations. Here’s what they know so far:
Is BA.5 more contagious?
BA.5 is undoubtedly more contagious than the variants that dominated earlier this summer – one study estimated that it is 1.4 times more transmissible than the subvariant that dominated before it.
Its transmissibility is evidenced by the rapid takeover of BA.5 as the dominant strain of coronavirus. In North Carolina, it went from 1% of cases at the beginning of May to 38% of cases at the end of June.
What if I just had COVID?
A recent COVID-19 infection may not be enough to protect you against re-infection with BA.5.
Earlier in the pandemic, scientists operated by the rule of thumb that infections gave you three months of protection against COVID-19. BA.5 changed this calculation.
Thanks to mutations in the spike protein, this subvariant is uniquely adept at evading immunity from past vaccinations and infections, even if the infection was recent.
Dr. David Montefiori, a coronavirus vaccine researcher at Duke University School of Medicine, said getting a boost is one of the most important things you can do to protect yourself. The initial series of injections (two doses of Moderna/Pfizer or one dose of J&J) offer very little protection against omicron variants, Montefiori said.
His lab found that the boosters improve immunity against omicron by 20 times.
Anyone aged 5 and over can get a booster, and people over 50 or severely immunocompromised can get a second booster.
How dangerous is it?
No evidence has shown that BA.5 will cause more severe disease than previous omicron subvariants.
Montefiori said it’s helpful to think that the immune system has two lines of defense. The first line protects the body from contracting COVID-19 while the second line prevents the virus from causing serious illness once infected.
The first line of defense was seriously weakened by BA.5. By some measures, it is three times weaker against this subvariant than the original omicron strain.
This second line of defense, which prevents the virus from causing serious illnesses, has not weakened much. Hospitalizations and deaths do not appear to have increased in response to the increase in cases.
It’s still unclear how this subvariant might affect your chances of developing long COVID.
What are the symptoms of BA.5?
BA.5’s symptoms appear to closely mirror those of its omicron relatives.
Mark Heise, an immunologist at UNC-Chapel Hill, said infected patients often report sore throats, muscle aches and upper respiratory symptoms. Generally, omicron doesn’t seem to affect taste or smell as much as previous variants.
Should I wear a mask?
If you’ve stopped wearing face masks in public, it might be time to put them back on.
Well-fitting, high-quality masks are always effective in protecting against BA.5. Montefiori recommends N95 or KN95 masks, although surgical masks are better than none at all.
Heise said there was no hard data to suggest people should wear masks outside.
“As long as I’m not really crowded, I still don’t mask myself when I’m just talking with people outside,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t change.”
Teddy Rosenbluth covers science for The News & Observer in a post funded by Duke Health and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The N&O retains full editorial control of the work