While the Florida Department of Health isn’t placing a lot of emphasis on COVID-19, a subvariant called EG.5 is rising globally.
The EG.5 is from the XBB strain of Omicron, and it’s in the United States and other countries.
The prevalence of that subvariant has risen from 7.6% in June to 17.4% in July, according to an initial risk evaluation from the World Health Organization. This rise in cases caused the organization to designate EG.5 as a variant of interest, prompting more detailed monitoring.
In the United States, the EG.5 subvariant cases climbed from 4.4% in late June to 17.3% in August, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, EG.5 accounted for just .2% of cases in the country in late April, according to the CDC.
Now, it’s the largest share of the various COVID variants that continue to spread in the United States, according to estimates from the CDC.
In the southern region of the country, EG.5 accounts for 15.6% of all COVID cases. Those include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. However, the data is not broken down by each state.
Though the Florida Department of Health has reported an increase of nearly 10,000 COVID-19 cases over the past 10 weeks, the state’s biweekly report doesn’t include the prevalence of variants. Cases have gone up from 5,423 on the week of May 26 to 15,170 the week of July 28, according to the FDH report.
The public risk of the subvariant, which first appeared in February, is low and there haven’t been changes in the disease severity, according to the WHO risk evaluation published on Wednesday.
Nevertheless, the organization’s top leader on Wednesday stressed the importance of surveillance efforts to determine the seriousness of the subvariant.
“We recognize that many people and governments view COVID-19 as a thing of the past,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a media briefing. “So why are these recommendations still important? For those who lost someone they love, for those who continue to be at risk of severe disease or death, for those who continue to suffer from post-COVID-19 condition – for them, COVID-19 is still a daily threat and a daily trauma.
“WHO will not forget about COVID-19, and nor can governments.”
Additionally, the director-general advised countries to prepare for longer-term sustained management of COVID-19, continue to offer vaccines, and provide equitable access to treatment.
Dr. Michael Teng, associate professor of medicine at the University of South Florida, described the situation with EG.5 as something that is going to happen over and over again. Still, tracking the emergence of more variants is a public health necessity to adapt vaccines in the same way the flu vaccine gets updates depending on the prevalence of variants, he said in a phone interview with Florida Phoenix.
“The other problem here is that we’re not testing like we used to, and for many of us, including myself, when I test, I don’t report it anywhere,” Teng said. “I have no place to really tell somebody that I’m positive or negative. So, it’s going to be much more difficult to know how many cases there are out there.”
Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Health recommends that Floridians practice proper sanitary measures and monitor themselves for flu-like symptoms, the department’s press secretary wrote to the Phoenix.
“The Department continues to approach COVID-19, just like any other respiratory disease, in a uniform and cohesive manner,” James Williams III wrote.
