�������ýҕ�l

The BA.5 omicron subvariant, which is now the most prevalent coronavirus strain in the United States, is four times more resistant to COVID-19 vaccines, according to a new study. The strain, which is considered "hypercontagious," according to the Mayo Clinic, is more defiant against messenger RNA vaccines, which include Pfizer and Moderna. (Archie, 7/15)

Fifty-five percent of the country's population now live in areas of "high" COVID-19 Community Levels, up from 32% last week, according to the CDC's weekly update. Another 30% are living in counties deemed to be "medium" risk. (Tin, 7/14)

Sustained jumps in cases and hospitalizations fueled by the hyper-infectious BA.5 subvariant pushed Los Angeles County into the high COVID-19 community level Thursday, a shift that could trigger a new public indoor mask mandate by the end of this month unless conditions improve. (Money and Lin II, 7/14)

As coronavirus variants like BA.5 and BA.2.75 become more prevalent and more transmissible, experts are repeatedly pointing to a transmission reduction strategy that’s worked since the beginning of the pandemic — air ventilation, especially indoors. “We don’t know what variants we’re dealing with in the future,” said Stanford University infectious disease specialist Dr. Abraar Karan, “but transmission is always the same.” (Echeverria, 7/14)

New hospital admissions of patients with COVID-19 are on the rise in the U.S., topping 31,000 over a seven-day average ending July 11, CDC data shows. (Reed, 7/14)

Surveys of coronavirus levels in Bay Area wastewater suggest that the region’s relentless spring COVID surge probably rivals the winter omicron wave in terms of the number of people currently infected — in fact, this surge may be the largest yet in some places. But capturing the scale of disease, and conveying to the public the relative risk of getting sick, is becoming increasingly tricky, health experts say. (Allday, 7/14)

Coronavirus test-positivity trends, for instance, look quite bad. A rate below 5 percent might have once indicated a not-too-bad level of infection, but “I wake up every morning and look … and it’s 20 percent again,” says Pavitra Roychoudhury, a viral genomicist at the University of Washington who’s tracking SARS-CoV-2 cases in her community. “The last time we were below 10 percent was the first week of April.” It’s not clear, Roychoudhury told me, when the next downturn might be. (Wu, 7/14)

Cancer and heart disease continue to be the leading causes of death in Maine, according to a new state report on community health. But COVID-19 is now the third leading cause, edging above unintentional injuries and chronic lower respiratory disease. (Wight, 7/13)