Thread by @DrEricDing

⚠️Very worried about #BA5 causing #COVID19 hospitalization surges everywhere it goes—bad it’s very past-immunity-evasive. Portugal hit 80-90% of its old hospitalization peak recently. UK hospitals strained to the brink now too. Bad trends many in places.🧵

HT @jburnmurdoch

2) based on models, #BA5 and it’s close cousin #BA4, also past-immunity evasive, is surging so fast, it will likely be 50% of all #SARSCoV2 strains in the Us this week—and soon displacing all other past strains.

HT @JPWeiland

3) Why do we need to look at Portugal? It’s a highly vaccinated country, yet #BA5 has completely overwhelmed it. Vaccines work overall, but if a virus spreads unchecked without OTHER MITIGATIONS, vaccines not enough alone. We need vaccines+ PLUS other mitigations.

4) I want folks to understand that vaccines are incredible inventions & have saved MILLIONS of lives. But our old Wuhan-1.0 era vaccines need to be updated. Hospitalizations for #COVID19 in England soaring across all age groups. But Boris does nothing—need vaccines+PLUS.

5) why are some countries just only starting to see #COVID19 hospitalizations climb? Well #Ba5 & #BA4 have only just begun to arrive in various countries. Look at the central EU countries like France, Italy, Germany— #Ba5 is only on the upswing recently… it has room to surge.

6) “the new wave is starting”. And #BA5 and #BA4 are closer to old Alpha and Delta that infect the lungs more, leading to more serious respiratory illnesses. independent.co.uk/news/health/co…

7) Warning— do no rely on past infections to protect you from more severe #COVID19. New research shows that REINFECTIONS can be often times worse and have increased risks for hospitalization and deaths and #longCOVID. Don’t mess around with COVID.

8) to be absolutely clear—vaccines averted 14 million #COVID19 deaths to 20 million excess deaths during the pandemic. Don’t spin anything anti-vaccine please. Vaccines save lives. But now we need updates vaccines to save more lives against #BA4 & #BA5.
thelancet.com/journals/lanin…

9) Hospitalizations for #COVID19 worsening even further in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿— among not just elderly but young adults and children too. Worse yet is that 🇬🇧 is no longer doing mitigations and no longer offering free testing to stop and slow transmission. This will get worse.

10) The deep concerns about #BA5 & Ba4 are shared by many experts & supported by many studies that show much lower levels of protection from past infections to BA4/5. In some ways, it’s more evasive than old Omicron & likely more severe than BA1 Omicron.
cnn.com/2022/06/22/hea…

11) Let’s not forget the #COVID19 risk to kids. Besides record pediatric hospitalizations recently, #LongCovid in kids is found in 1 in 4 infections!

12) if you care about kids, you would protect them from #COVID19 hospitalizations that are again strongly rising nationwide and worldwide.