By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES — A month ago it accounted for less than 10% of sequenced cases in Washington, but today the BA.2 subvariant of the COVID-19 omicron variant is now the dominant strain of the virus in our state. That’s despite the fact that overall COVID cases and hospitalizations are continuing to decline, according to the Department of Health.
Here in Clallam County we are, as usual, a little behind the curve when it comes to Covid trends, says Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry.
“You know, we haven’t seen the BA.2 overtake BA.1 here yet, but the sequencing is always a couple weeks delayed. So I would say BA.2 is unlikely to be the dominant variant in Clallam and Jefferson yet, but it will be in the next couple weeks.”
BA.2 has wreaked havoc in some parts of the world, but Dr. Berry says there’s no reason to be overly concerned at this point.
“We don’t have evidence that it’s more severe, and we also don’t have evidence that it does any better job at getting around our other protection. The vaccines still work well against BA.2, masking still works well against BA.2. So the tools we have in our toolbox still work really well, we just have to use them.”
We also learned this week that a second round of booster shots was greenlighted by the FDA on Tuesday. For those over 50, health officials have decided the data on waning immunity justifies making another shot available four months after the first boost.
“It’s a little different right now compared to how we handled the vaccine in the past. I would say that it is an option. It’s certainly safe if you want to go ahead and get a fourth dose. But right now, the data still really out on whether or not it’s necessary. We’re still seeing really good persistence of immunity and protection against severe disease, from that primary series, and from getting your booster.”
Covid case rates and hospitalizations in Clallam County have fallen steadily for weeks, but a small bump in cases has just put us over 100 per 100K and back, slightly, into the moderate category.