Charlottesville doctors tracking additional COVID-19 variants

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - There’s an additional COVID-19 omicron variant, and doctors in Charlottesville are watching closely.

Doctors say BA.2.12.1 is evading pre-existing immunity from infection with the original BA.1 omicron variant.

“So, if you were one of the one-out-of-every-two Americans that got to omicron sometime between December and and April, you may not be immune to this new sub variant,” Doctor Bill Petri with UVA Health said. “That’s concerning because we were in a really good place in March, because everyone had either omicron or had been vaccinated, or they had both, and so we had very high levels of immunity and that’s going to be less the case as we get into the summer because of this sub variants.”

According to Dr. Petri, it makes up 33% of all COVID-19 cases in the United States.

The doctor says it’s still a good time to get a COVID-19 booster shot, especially with new variant spreading.

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