The BA.5 variant of the novel coronavirus could be essentially the most contagious yet, with health experts saying it could reinfect COVID-19 patients and survivors every month. 

The BA.5 subvariant of omicron quickly became the dominant strain of SARS-CoV-2 in most parts of the world, and scientists can have finally realized why the variant easily took over in comparison with other variants. 

“What we’re seeing is an increasing number of people that have been infected with BA.2 after which becoming infected after 4 weeks. So perhaps six to eight weeks they’re developing a second infection, and that’s almost definitely BA.4 or BA.5,” Western Australia’s chief health officer Andrew Robertson told News.com.au. 

For Robertson, what was previously seen as people gaining a certain level of protection after a bout with the virus is one way or the other not applicable with the more moderen variants of SARS-CoV-2. 

The speed by which BA.5 and BA.4 would reinfect individuals in comparison with the previous waves of COVID-19 led some experts to treat them as essentially the most transmissible strains yet. And that is undeniable with the variety of transmissions they caused recently. 

In line with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the BA.5 variant has now taken over the opposite strains within the U.S., accounting for around 88.8% of recent cases. Meanwhile, BA.4 accounted for 4.3% of recent cases. 

“They’re taking on, so clearly they’re more contagious than earlier variants of omicron,” David Montefiori, a professor on the Human Vaccine Institute at Duke University Medical Center, told NBC News.

Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London Danny Altmann identified in an op-ed piece published on The Guardian that even after surviving omicron, individuals are “not well shielded from further infections” as a result of the more transmissible variants. 

Nevertheless, experts maintained that the COVID-19 vaccines are able to providing partial immunity and protection against more severe infections brought on by the newer strains. 

Based on the most recent figures, the U.S. has documented greater than 93.4 million cases and 1.04 million deaths. The country has administered greater than 607 million vaccine doses. Since June 18, greater than 941,000 kids below 5 have received a minimum of one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.