CLEVELAND — We've all heard of the new strains of COVID-19, but how are they different from prior ones and which are affecting Northeast Ohio?
"The BA .5 is accounting for most of our infections right now in the U.S.," said Dr. Donald Dumford, medical director of infection prevention of Cleveland Clinic, Akron General.
Health experts say BA.5 spreads easily, evades tests sometimes and is re-infecting people. The symptoms are similar to prior strains: Sore throat, fever and runny nose.
According to Dr. Dumford the new variants aren't necessarily making people sicker.
"It's really been mostly mild infections. I think that's because at this point everybody's had exposure to, you know, some form of COVID or to vaccines," Dumford told us.
Another variant picking up steam is BA.2.75, which is rapidly spreading in India at the moment.
"Over the past month, they've seen a quadrupling of their daily case count," Dumford said. "So it seems like the early results are more transmissible, but not more severe."
He's not quite sure when BA.2.75 will hit Ohio, and it's too early to tell how it will affect Northeast Ohio, but Dr. Dumford says the more people vaccinated, the better chance of a mild case when it actually does reach us.
"Even if the new variants are able to escape that older immunity, at least the system's kind of primed and at least you get some antibody response," Dumford said.
While another spike is expected come fall and winter, Dr. Dumford is hopeful it won't hit as hard.
"As we get into fall and winter, we start to cluster indoors with each other, that's just more opportunity for COVID as well as other respiratory virus to be transmitted. So I wouldn't be surprised if we see an increase in the number of cases, but I don't think it's gonna be to the degree that we had, you know, last summer, this past winter," Dumford said.
Editor's Note: The below video is from a prior report on May 18, 2022.
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