A long winter virus season is finally coming to a close, but there is still reason to frequently wash your hands and get all of your latest vaccines.
A highly mutated COVID-19 variant, BA.3.2 ― nicknamed Cicada ― is spreading in at least half the country and appears to be infecting kids at higher rates than other variants. (Before you panic: the new variant is not causing more severe disease.)
“The reports do seem to indicate that this variant is more prevalent in children, as opposed to older populations,” said Dr. Neil Maniar, a professor in public health at Northeastern University in Boston.
“There are probably a couple of reasons why it is more prevalent among kids,” Maniar said. First, it’s highly mutated from previous variants, which means it’s more infectious. Kids are also often in environments that make the virus spread easily (such as daycare, school, and camps), which, when combined with the fact that it’s more infectious, may also help explain why this variant is showing up more in children, Maniar explained.
According to Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine in the department of health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, this variant’s prevalence in kids isn’t totally unexpected.
