NJ COVID Hospitalizations Highest Since February As BA.5 Becomes Dominant Strain

NEW JERSEY — As a new COVID-19 variant becomes dominant in New Jersey, the state surpassed 1,000 hospitalizations from the virus for the first time since February. BA.5 — an omicron subvariant — continues to show an increased ability to escape immunity compared to prior strains, sparking concerns around the world of a summer COVID wave.

The state had 1,013 hospital patients with confirmed or suspected COVID as of Tuesday, according to the New Jersey Department of Health. That's the Garden State's highest total since Feb. 20, when last winter's omicron surge waned.

The current totals remain a far cry from the worst of the omicron wave, which peaked Jan. 11 at 6,089 COVID hospitalizations in New Jersey. But before last winter's surge that brought record case totals to the state, New Jersey hadn't reported 1,000 hospitalizations with the virus since October.

The CDC estimates that BA.5 became New Jersey's most dominant COVID strain in early July. The subvariant represented 63.9 percent of cases in New Jersey's region for the week ending Saturday. (The CDC separates its most up-to-date variant-proportion data into regions. New Jersey's region also includes New York, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.)

Why BA.5 Sparks Concerns

The variant has caused concerns throughout the planet. The World Health Organization reported a 30 percent increase in COVID cases over the past two weeks, "BA.5 and other descendent lineages and the lifting of public health and social measures," according to the agency.

BA.5 appears to evade immunity — including from prior COVID infections — better than past strains, meaning it could cause the number of infections to rise in the coming weeks, according to President Joe Biden's administration.

But BA.5 and BA.4 — the strain that represents 14.5 percent of the New Jersey region's cases, according to the CDC — don't appear to cause more severe disease.

"There’s really no clear evidence that they’re more or less likely to make people sick and cause severe illness and death," David Montefiori, a professor at the Human Vaccine Institute at Duke University Medical Center, told NBC News.

Health experts believe the current vaccines still work well to prevent severe illness and death. But their waning ability to prevent infections prompted the Food and Drug Administration to recommend that vaccine makers modify booster shots to target BA.4 and BA.5.

For more coronavirus information, visit the state health department's COVID-19 dashboard, The New York Times data page for New Jersey and the CDC's data tracker.