Why You Should Be Very Concerned About COVID BA.5

Most people seem oblivious to COVID-19 these days. Done-Done-Done is a widespread attitude. Tired of thinking about COVID! Tired of precautions! The message I am getting from readers is: just stop talking about, writing about or dealing with the damn virus! Sadly, though, COVID BA.5 is different. This variant is evading the vaccines and the boosters. Even people who have caught COVID once or twice are not protected from BA.5. More than 300 people are dying each day from COVID. That’s more than the daily average a year ago!

What’s Going on with COVID BA.5?

Dr. Eric Topol is an extraordinary scientist. We started interviewing him roughly two decades ago when he was  chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. When he founded the Scripps Research Translational Institute of Molecular Medicine, we continued to interview him about advances in health care.

We have continued to interview Dr. Topol during COVID. Here is a link to a Show 1280: Learning Lessons from the Pandemic.

Now, Eric Topol has written an intriguing article titled “The BA.5 Story.”  It was published on Substack.com (June 27, 2022). The bottom line is that COVID BA.5 is:

“…the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen.”

Why is COVID BA.5 So Scary?

The coronavirus has evolved into a new variant of Omicron. COVID BA.5 is rapidly becoming the dominant variant in the US, and it is able to evade our immune response to previous versions. It has major differences in the spike protein. In addition, there are other mutations that help BA.5 outcompete previous variants.

That’s why so many people are catching COVID even though they are vaccinated and boosted. Dr. Topol recognizes that people are weary of mitigation measures. Nonetheless, to reduce the impact of BA.5 he recommends high-quality masks along with excellent ventilation and air filtration.

What About a COVID BA.5 Booster?

Here is what Dr. Topol has to say about that:

“Should we wait for a BA.5 booster? That will take months, and it should be noted it took more than 7 months for the Omicron BA.1 booster to be tested, a delay that is exceedingly long and unacceptable relative to the timing of validation and production of the original vaccines in 10 months during 2020.

“There is no right answer but variant chasing is a flawed approach. By the time a BA.5 vaccine booster is potentially available, who knows what will be the predominant strain? All of this gets back to the vital need for new generation of vaccines that are universal, that is variant-proof…”

Where Do We Go From Here?

As much as everyone wants to be done with COVID-19, it is not going away. I keep hearing that we will just have to learn to live with it. In truth, too many of us are dying from it. For the last several weeks more than 300 people die from COVID every day. Two years ago, no one would have believed that could be possible.

It is conceivable that so many people will catch COVID BA.5 over the next several weeks that the virus will burn itself out. Maybe we will eventually achieve the elusive herd immunity that experts were talking about two years ago.

But it is entirely possible that the next variant will be even more contagious than COVID BA.5. It could start a whole new round of infections. Dr. Topol points out that the time it took the virus to mutate from Omicron BA.1 to BA.5 was shockingly fast.

What About Avoiding COVID BA.5?

I have written about the need for “an indoor air revolution.” Here is a link to an article about improving ventilation and air filtration.

Better yet, listen to our podcast about the kinds of things you can do to improve your indoor air quality. One of our guests was Dr. Richard L. Corsi. He is one of the country’s leading experts on ventilation and air filtration. When we interviewed him he was the President of the Academy of Fellows of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Research. Here is a link. You can listen to the streaming audio by clicking on the arrow inside the green circle under Dr. Linsey Marr’s Photo. Or you can scroll to the bottom of the page and download the free mp3 file.

Even if COVID BA.5 burns itself out and is not replaced with another variant, we would all be better off with improved indoor air. It will reduce our likelihood of catching influenza, colds and other respiratory infections. And if a brand new infection comes along in our lifetimes, better air quality just might help protect us from the worst of the next pandemic.