New Omicron Variant Causing Concern

By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer 

#TurksandCaicos, January 11, 2023 – Weeks after the TCI government made the decision to extend the vaccine mandate for visitors to the country, a new variant of Omicron is spreading across the United States.

The US Centres for Disease Control says the new variant is called XBB1.5. and cases caused by it have doubled in as little as a week making it responsible for about 40 per cent of the COVID-19 infections in the country.

Listed as a Variant of Concern by the CDC, as all Omicron sub-variants are, it was recorded as far back as August but barely made a dent in infections with BA.5 still raging. In the past two weeks, however, it saw a massive increase according to data from the CDC outpacing all the other variants including BA.5.

As a terrible flu season continues in the county COVID-19 related hospitalisations are increasing thankfully XBB1.5.  This variant has not proven to be more severe than its related sub-variants but infections have only just begun to increase and data may still be in the process of being collated.

Dr. Barbara Mahon, Director of CDC’s Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division, told NBC News “we’re seeing hospitalizations have been notching up overall across the country.  They don’t appear to be notching up more in the areas that have more XBB.1.5.”

But as the flu season and the Covid wave continue and the holiday season comes to a close in the country, more people are getting infected and more people are getting seriously ill.  In addition to that, the US is facing the opening of schools where mask mandates and social distancing have been for the most part discontinued.

There are at least 18 Omicron sub-variants recorded so far and BA.5 is now responsible for less than 4 per cent of infections.