Melissa's Musings(My opinionated view of life)

New COVID-19 Variants Don't Worry Americans: Pew Study | Time "Scientists are  warning  that ever more  dangerous forms  of SARS-CoV-2 continue to emerge and threaten to drive potential surges in the coming months. On Oct. 4, White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci  said  that as we head into the winter months, “We should anticipate that we very well may get another variant that would emerge that would elude the immune response that we’ve gotten from infection and/or from vaccination.”'

BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 escape antibodies elicited by Omicron infection | Nature : SARS-CoV-2 Omicron sublineages BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 exhibit higher transmissibility over BA.21. The new variants’ receptor binding and immune evasion capability require immediate investigation. Here, coupled with Spike structural comparisons, we show that BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5 exhibit comparable ACE2-binding affinities to BA.2. Importantly, BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5 display stronger neutralization evasion than BA.2 against the plasma from 3-dose vaccination and, most strikingly, from post-vaccination BA.1 infections. To delineate the underlying antibody evasion mechanism, we determined the escaping mutation profiles2, epitope distribution3 and Omicron neutralization efficacy of 1640 RBD-directed neutralizing antibodies (NAbs), including 614 isolated from BA.1 convalescents. Interestingly, post-vaccination BA.1 infection mainly recalls wildtype-induced humoral memory. The resulting elicited antibodie...

Concern grows as two new Omicron sub-variants spread across US | Omicron variant | The Guardian

As New Omicron Subvariant Spreads, Here Are the Symptoms to Watch For : The BA.2 omicron subvariant still remains the dominant COVID strain across the U.S., but another subvariant has gained momentum in recent days. BA.2.12.1, which health officials say appears to be up to 27% more contagious than BA.2, accounts for approximately 36.5% of cases nationwide, according to the most recent CDC weekly numbers. While BA.2 accounts for approximately 75% of all...

Omicron subvariants: New, fitter Covid-19 viruses begin to drive their own waves - CNN : There's no denying the numbers: Even with spotty reporting, Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations are rising again in the United States.