'Stealth Omicron' Becomes Dominant Variant Around NJ: What It Means

NEW JERSEY — As New Jersey officials anticipate a rise in COVID-19 cases, the BA.2 variant became the New Jersey region's most dominant strain of the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Garden State has yet to see COVID cases or hospitalizations increase since the omicron wave passed last winter. But BA.2 appears more transmissible than its omicron predecessor, according to health authorities, and the strain's presence continues to increase in New Jersey.

BA.2 accounted for an estimated 51.8 percent of cases in the region from March 13 to Saturday, according to the CDC. (The agency groups New Jersey with New York, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands for its most recent variant-surveillance data). Only a month prior, stealth omicron accounted for an estimated 17.1 percent of cases in the region.

New Jersey will likely see an increase in cases, but state officials don't anticipate a need to re-instate statewide mandates, according to Gov. Phil Murphy and State Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli.

"We continue to be among the nation's most-vaccinated states," they said Thursday in a joint statement. "Our health care infrastructure remains strong."

The strain appears 30 percent more contagious than BA.1 — the original omicron variant — according to the World Health Organization. But the WHO found no difference in severity between the variants. People who caught the original omicron variant can get re-infected, but studies suggest infection from the former provides "strong protection" against re-infection from the latter, according to evidence the World Health Organization cites.

The stealth subvariant has recently sparked record or near-record outbreaks throughout East Asia and Europe. The United States will likely see a rise in cases but perhaps not a COVID surge, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House's chief medical advisor.

“Hopefully, we won’t see a surge. I don’t think we will," Fauci said Sunday. "The easiest way to prevent that is to continue to get people vaccinated. And for those who have been vaccinated, to continue to get them boosted.”

New York has seen more infections, with its case rate increasing 56.7 percent in the past week, according to federal data. Such an increase hasn't hit New Jersey yet, where the seven-day average of new daily cases has stagnated at just less than 1,000 during that span.

New Jersey averaged 993 new cases per day in the past week, according to federal data. That's far down from the omicron wave, when the state reported 10,000 new cases or more every day from Dec. 23 to mid-January. The number of patients in New Jersey hospitals with confirmed or suspected COVID hit an omicron peak of 6,089 people on Jan. 11. The state is down to 392 COVID hospitalizations as of Monday.