Los Angeles County Director of Public Health says the number of new COVID-19 infections is growing quickly, but it has not translated into a higher number of hospitalizations.
Dr. Barbara Ferrer, addressing the L.A. County Board of Supervisors Tuesday, said experts suspect about half of the new cases appearing locally involve the especially infectious BA.2.12.1, a new subvariant of the BA.2 omicron variant.
But the new cases, she said, have not led to a surge in hospital admissions, something she attributes to the past two years of preventative measures, like vaccinations. Parents with kids under five years old who are waiting for a vaccination option are getting a dose of optimism. The company said it expects to submit its data by the end of May or early-June, with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration reviews to quickly follow.In a report recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the FDA said the U.S. might need to update its COVID vaccines every year and called the global presence of the virus"the new normal.