How worried should I be about BA.5, on a scale of 1 to 10? We asked 4 leading COVID experts for their rating

There's a new coronavirus variant traveling around this summer at a record clip.

It's a variant of Omicron called BA.5, and it's causing a stir largely because it has evolved even further away than other Omicron variants did from the coronavirus we already knew. 

Previously, getting infected with Omicron meant you probably had some protection against reinfection for a few months. But BA.5 is strategically evading our built-up defenses against prior versions of the virus. This all means that reinfections — even in vaccinated and recently infected people — are up, way up.

So, yes, BA.5 is...