New COVID-19 omicron variant circulating in U.S.

A new variation of the omicron strain of COVID-19 is now circulating.

The CDC has confirmed the strain is present in Florida.

This subvariant is called omicron BA.2 and it’s considered more contagious than its predecessor.

China was the first country to admit it was being hit hard by the new strain.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and the rest of the world relaxed its COVID-19 policies. BA.2 is now spreading through Europe.

Now, the CDC reports it accounts for 23% of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., including Florida.

“What is important is to date, BA.2 does not appear to be causing more severe disease. Now, that’s good. And everyone then immediately puts their fingers in their ears and stops listening. And that it would be a real problem with that because of contagiousness and basically exponential trumps virulence. Okay, everyone kept saying that, oh, wow, omicron wasn’t as bad, omicron wasn’t as bad. And in the end, when the statistics were looked at, more people got sick, more people ended up in some places in the hospital,” said Dr. David Lindner, a pulmonologist at NCH.

Experts find people with immunity, from either vaccines or infection, are less likely to suffer severe consequences even if they do contract the disease.

There is some research that people in Europe are getting re-infected shortly after being infected with omicron because of the mutation.