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New immune-evading Omicron variants BA.4, BA.5 are likely in every U.S. state; Where they’ve been identified so far

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New immune-evading Omicron variants BA.4, BA.5 are likely in every U.S. state, an expert says. Here’s where they’ve been identified so far

 

The immune-evading, highly transmissible Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5 are likely now in every U.S. state, an expert told Fortune, after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control released a list of 14 states where the virus had been identified.

On Friday, Fortune was the first to report that both variants had arrived in the U.S., citing multiple COVID-19 researchers with access to GISAID, an international research database that tracks changes in COVID and the flu virus. The earliest sample of BA.4 in the U.S. was collected on March 30, and the earliest sample of BA.5 in the U.S. was collected March 29.

On Monday the U.S. Centers for Disease Control provided Fortune with a list of where probable positive tests were located. The locations were widespread, ranging from California on the West Coast to Missouri and Ohio in the Midwest and Maine, Washington, D.C., and New York on the East Coast.

"The dispersion tells us they're already present across the U.S. and we just haven't detected it yet in any states that haven't been named," Dr. Phoebe Lostroh, a Harvard-trained microbiology professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colo., told Fortune.

Locations where probable cases of BA.4 have been identified, according to the CDC:

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