White House COVID coordinator: Country can weather new BA.5 variant just fine

The Biden administration said the fast-moving BA.5 variant of the coronavirus is a stark but manageable challenge, unveiling a plan that relies on frequent testing, antiviral drugs and up-to-date vaccinations while stopping short of an immediate expansion of the booster campaign as drugmakers reformulate their shots.

The new variant and a related one, BA.4, have become dominant in the U.S. and appear to transmit faster than previous forms of the virus and evade prior immunity — even as polling and general behavior suggest Americans would quit worrying about the pandemic.

U.S. hospitalizations have risen 17% over the past two weeks and reached a daily average of 33,000, the highest level since March.

“We have been tracking BA.4 and BA.5 for months. We’ve been clear-eyed that these kinds of subvariants were always a possibility,” White House COVID-19 Coordinator Ashish Jha said. “We can get through whatever Mother Nature throws at us in the next four, six, eight weeks ahead and whatever Mother Nature throws at us this fall and winter.”