a particular covid treatment due to a more contagious subvariant. the food and drug administration says that the monoclonal antibody treatment called sotromivab has been successful keeping people out of the hospital but does not seem to help people who contracted the omicron subvariant, known as ba2. the fda says ba2 is now the dominant strain in at least eight states, two territories, and is rising elsewhere. it s also driving a surge in cases in parts of europe, particularly the uk, germany, and the netherlands. and joining us now is anne rimoin. she is a professor in the epidemiology department at the ucla fielding school of public health, and she joins us now, live, from los angeles. professor, thank you for joining us. let s talk about ba2 and what we know about the new omicron variant. it is apparently more transmissible than ba1 but does it cause more severe illness? thanks for having me, and this is a good question. so ba is a appears to be more
transmissible. maybe even 50 to 60% more transmissible but it does not appear to cause more severe disease, so that s good news. very good news. and look, we know that cases caused by ba2 remain relatively high, relatively speaking, across asia. there is also this new wave of ba2 infections happening across europe and we are starting to see a rise in ba2 cases in the u.s. um, is this going to be another surge in the u.s. some? well, not really, no. what we are starting to see here in the united states and in northern in north america, in general is an uptick in wastewater surveillance so we are starting to detect it in greater and greater quantities here. it s now becoming the dominant variant here. we ve started to see in new york city, for example, an uptick in cases and in certain parts of the united states. but it s really unclear what kind of an increase we are going
disease, hospitalization, and death in most people. n now, immunocompromised people need to be very vigilant about getting these doses as they are recommended but we are still looking at the data and trying to understand how important is this next dose? when does it need to happen? and what kind of long-term benefit are we going to see? so, we are still looking at the data but it s great that these doses are going to be available. i think that is a very prudent thing to do, given that even if ba2 this omicron subvariant doesn t create a very large wave, this virus is going to continue to spread. when it spreads, it has opportunity to mutate and we need to be ready for the next surge. yeah, and as the virus continues to evolve, continues to mutate and perhaps additional subvariants could emerge, are we seeing a scenario that we are going to have to take booster shots the same way we take a flu shot every season? i think it s very reasonable to expect that we ll need to have a re
infected with the omicron variant. the big question is is if you have had omicron, will you get reinfected with this ba2 subvariant? and the answer is it s possible. data study recently in in preprint, not yet peer-reviewed, has suggested that you can get reinfected from ba1 to ba2. those though those reinfections are rare. all right. professor anne rimoin, we will leave it at that. thank you so much for lending your expertise to our audience. take care. my pleasure. you are watching cnn newsroom. up next, firefighters in the u.s. they want to help colleagues in ukraine who also fight the flames. after the break, the americans are collecting all sorts of equipment the ukrainians might also need. we will talk to guys at the firehouse that started it all.