{"id":3093,"date":"2022-03-30T10:37:22","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T10:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/the-more-contagious-ba-2-version-of-omicron-is-now-the-most-common-in-the-u-s-npr\/"},"modified":"2022-03-30T10:37:22","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T10:37:22","slug":"the-more-contagious-ba-2-version-of-omicron-is-now-the-most-common-in-the-u-s-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/03\/30\/the-more-contagious-ba-2-version-of-omicron-is-now-the-most-common-in-the-u-s-npr\/","title":{"rendered":"The more contagious BA.2 version of omicron is now the most common in the U.S. &#8211; NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>     <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/people\/1000952100\/joe-hernandez\" rel=\"author\"  data-metrics='{\"action\":\"Click Byline\",\"category\":\"Story Metadata\"}' >       Joe Hernandez     <\/a>   <br \/>                 Lylliette Ramirez gets a coronavirus test in January in North Miami, Florida.                                  <b class=\"credit\" aria-label=\"Image credit\">                                          Joe Raedle\/Getty Images                                      <\/b>                 <b class=\"hide-caption\"><b>hide caption<\/b><\/b>             <br \/>Lylliette Ramirez gets a coronavirus test in January in North Miami, Florida.<br \/>A subvariant of omicron that&#8217;s even more contagious than the original is now the most common coronavirus strain in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<br \/>The <a href=\"https:\/\/covid.cdc.gov\/covid-data-tracker\/#variant-proportions\">CDC estimates<\/a> that the BA.2 strain now accounts for more than half \u2014 54.9% \u2014 of coronavirus infections nationwide, according to new data.<br \/>It&#8217;s even more prevalent in certain parts of the country. For example, over 70% of COVID-19 cases in the Northeast are BA.2, the CDC estimates.<br \/>The BA.2 variant does not appear to make people any sicker than the original omicron strain of the coronavirus, and vaccines still offer protection against it.<br \/>But health experts had feared that the highly transmissible variant could trigger another surge in cases in the U.S., as it has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2022\/03\/19\/1087682826\/omicron-variant-ba2-surge\">in the U.K.<\/a> and other parts of Europe.<br \/>On Tuesday, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2022\/03\/27\/1089072803\/the-fda-is-expected-to-authorize-2nd-boosters-for-people-50-and-up\">Food and Drug Administration authorized<\/a> and the CDC recommended a second booster dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for older people and certain immunocompromised people.<br \/>The authorization comes at an opportune time, some health experts say, since an uptick in people protected by vaccines and boosters could help limit the number of deaths and hospitalizations caused by BA.2.<br \/>At the same time, CDC estimates show no known infections caused by the once-common delta variant between March 20 and 26.<br \/>Sponsor Message<br \/><a href=\"\/about-npr\/186948703\/corporate-sponsorship\">Become an NPR sponsor<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/03\/29\/1089494990\/the-more-contagious-ba-2-version-of-omicron-is-now-the-most-common-in-the-u-s\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Hernandez Lylliette Ramirez gets a coronavirus test in January in North Miami, Florida. Joe Raedle\/Getty Images hide caption Lylliette Ramirez gets a coronavirus test in January in North Miami, Florida.A subvariant of omicron that&#8217;s even more contagious than the original is now the most common coronavirus strain in the U.S., according to the Centers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":869,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3093"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}