The virus that brought us COVID-19 is now going through accelerated evolution. Our vaccines must do the same.
The omicron wave was by far the worst yet for the United States, with, at its peak, well over 1 million new cases a day, nearly 160,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations and almost 4,000 deaths per day. That was attributed to the BA.1 variant, the most densely mutated version of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus since the pandemic’s origin. About 40% to 50% of Americans were likely infected with this virus in the brief span of 10 weeks.
Now we’re facing even worse omicron family variants, BA.2 and BA.2.12.1.
