MUTATIONS

BA.2 Variant Now the Dominant COVID-19 Strain in the U.S.

About 55 percent of all new cases are comprised of the more contagious version of Omicron, the CDC said.

Another season, another COVID variant. The CDC said Tuesday the BA.2 variant has become the dominant variant in the U.S. after making up about 55 percent of all new cases. The Northeast has seen the largest uptick of the more contagious strain of the BA.1 subvariant of Omicron, with 70 percent of all new cases reported to be BA.2. The Southern and mountain regions of the U.S. have seen the fewest, with about one-third of new cases comprised of the new variant. Experts told The Daily Beast earlier this month that the new strain was likely to become the dominant variant but because of vaccinations, mitigation efforts, and the sweeping nature of the Omicron variant, it wasn’t likely to stop a return to pre-pandemic norms. “It’s not 2020,” UCLA professor Jeffrey Klausner said.