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COVID-19: variants Viruses, like SARS-CoV-2, change over time and will continue to change the more they circulate. Sometimes, variants of the virus may develop. A variant is where the virus contains at least one new change to the original virus. Some variants of the coronavirus, such as Delta and Omicron, are spreading more easily between people.

Cases of the highly contagious variant, including a subvariant called BA.2, or “stealth omicron,” have caused surges of COVID-19, particularly in areas where safety precautions have been relaxed. “The omicron variant is responsible for the largest surge since 2019,” says Maragakis. “Omicron has a large number of mutations that all appeared at once.

One thing we know for sure about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is that it is changing constantly. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve seen a number of prominent variants, including Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron. Although new variants are an expected part of the evolution of viruses, monitoring each one that surfaces is essential in ensuring we—in the U.S. and globally—are prepared.

Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified one variant of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a variant of concern: Omicron. This variant spreads more easily than the original virus that causes COVID-19 and the delta variant. However, omicron appears to cause less severe disease.

The Omicron variant causes more infections and spreads faster than the original SARS-CoV-2 strain of the virus that causes COVID-19. CDC is working with state and local public health officials to monitor the spread of all variants, including Omicron. Getting a vaccine reduces your risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19.

CDC’s national genomic surveillance program identifies new and emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants to determine implications for COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments, or vaccines approved or authorized for use in the United States. Sequences with similar genetic changes are grouped into lineages, and multiple lineages can have the same substitutions.

Those estimates, released every Tuesday, show that the BA.5 subvariant currently makes up 87.1% of cases in the United States, up from 84.5% a week ago. The BA.4 subvariant, also a descendant of ...

Our live tracker keeps you updated with the need-to-know info on the new coronavirus variants now spreading through the United States.