I saw something yesterday suggesting that the newest Omicron variants - BA.4 and BA.5 - are not only more contagious but are particularly scary for 2 reasons.
1. They are much more effective at evading the antibodies produced by vaccines and the antibodies resulting from having caught COVID.
2. These variants seem to be targeting the lower lungs again. If you recall, the early variants through Delta hit the lower lungs hard, increasing hospitalizations and deaths. But Omicron tended to settle in the upper respiratory passages. So despite higher infectivity, we had lower hospitalization and death rates. But that could change with BA.4 and BA.5.
It's starting to look like the vaccines we'll have this fall will be tailored to Omicron. But which Omicron? If BA.1 and it's subvariants - which is what it looks like we'll get - that may be only slightly better than the original vaccines, if at all.
1. They are much more effective at evading the antibodies produced by vaccines and the antibodies resulting from having caught COVID.
2. These variants seem to be targeting the lower lungs again. If you recall, the early variants through Delta hit the lower lungs hard, increasing hospitalizations and deaths. But Omicron tended to settle in the upper respiratory passages. So despite higher infectivity, we had lower hospitalization and death rates. But that could change with BA.4 and BA.5.
It's starting to look like the vaccines we'll have this fall will be tailored to Omicron. But which Omicron? If BA.1 and it's subvariants - which is what it looks like we'll get - that may be only slightly better than the original vaccines, if at all.