Public Health has detected the BA.5 sub-variant of the COVID Omicron strain – which has led to a surge in infections, and re-infections, worldwide – in the Cayman Islands for the first time.
The department, in its weekly update, reported a 13% increase in new cases of COVID-19 in Cayman – from 347 to 424 – despite a drop in testing figures by 36% due to the recent lifting of restrictions that required people exiting isolation to be tested.
According to the Public Health report, “The microbiology lab has provided genomic sequencing results for a sample of 47 positive isolates giving insight into the sub-linage information for the Omicron variant circulating in Cayman Islands. The sub-lineage BA.5 has been detected for the first time, which has been reported by the UK to be driving the recent wave of infections.”
It added, “We anticipate there is shift occurring from the BA.2 to the BA.5 Omicron sub-lineage in Cayman.”
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of 9 July, more than 65% of all newly-reported COVID cases in the US were of the BA.5 variant.
The new variant appears to be good at evading immunity from vaccinations or previous infections.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a White House COVID-19 press conference earlier this week that people who were infected with COVID during the first wave of Omicron “really don’t have a lot of good protection” against the dominant BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants.
“It’s very, very clear that immunity wanes, whether that’s immunity following infection or immunity following vaccine. We have good data now that if you were infected with BA.1, you really don’t have a lot of good protection against BA.4 and BA.5,” he said.
The report from Cayman’s Public Health noted that the sub-lineage BE.1 has also been detected, which was first seen in March 2022 in Germany and has since been identified in 47 countries.
“There is clear evidence of a reduction in testing since the recent change in COVID-19 regulations, however, cases are increasing,” the department stated. “It is really important that symptomatic individuals get a PCR test to understand the spread of COVID-19 in the community.”
Public Health added that genomic sequencing from PCR tests enables “insight into what variants are circulating, and the presence of BA.5 Omicron sub-lineage and the novel BE.1 variant support our understanding of a shift away from the dominant BA.2 Omicron sub-lineage. In the UK, BA.5 has been associated with an increase in COVID-19 incidence, however the impact on vaccine effectiveness is not yet known.”
Hospital admissions
Two new hospital admissions were registered during the week covered in the report – 3-9 July – a decrease from six in the previous week.
Of the two new admissions, both were admitted due to COVID-19 morbidity, Public Health said.
A total of six patients required inpatient treatment, which decreased from 14 patients in the previous week.
Since the start of the pandemic, 29 people with COVID have died in Cayman.
According to Public Health statistics, 204 (62%) of the 328 COVID-positive people who have been hospitalised have been unvaccinated, while 86 had received two vaccine doses, 26 had three doses, and one had four doses. Another 11 were classified as ‘partially vaccinated’.
Read the full weekly report here.
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