The Independent and Xinhua
Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday May 15, 2022, p. 8
London. The BA.4 and BA.5 omicron sublineages of covid-19 were cataloged as concern variants
that could dominate this summer, reported the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), and warned of a possible vertiginous increase in cases throughout the continent, with the risk – in weeks or months – of additional pressures in hospitals and intensive care units.
This occurs when countries relax restrictions before the holidays. The ECDC warned that those over 80 years of age should get a booster of the vaccine as soon as possible, and governments have doses prepared for those over 60 and vulnerable groups.
BA.4 and BA.5 were first detected earlier this year in South Africa and have become the dominant variants. BA.4 has a remarkable ability to evade immunization by vaccine or previous infection.
The ECDC indicated that the sublineages are likely to increase infections in the United States, which currently has relatively few cases, consistent with observed patterns of each new variant.
The Office for National Statistics estimates that one in 45 people in Britain carries the virus.
North Korea: more infections
In North Korea, health authorities reported that 296,180 people have tested positive for covid-19 and 15 have died in the last 24 hours. Thus, that country has registered more than 800 thousand cases and 42 deaths since the beginning of the outbreak, on May 12, Europa Press reported.
Meanwhile, the National Institute of Health of Portugal estimated that BA.5 is already equivalent to a third of cases, and calculates that at this rate it will become the dominant variant in the country in less than a week. It also indicates that the strain does not cause more severe disease than the previous bloodlines of omicron
.
In Brazil, scientists from the Federal University of Minas Gerais detected a new lineage of the omicron variant, called BA.2.12.1 and considered to be more infectious.
The total number of confirmed infections since the beginning of the pandemic is 520 million 986 thousand 627, with 6 million 263 thousand 19 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
