Experts keeping their eye on new COVID-19 variant

With the summer sun shining down, the pandemic and the virus that caused it, is far from people’s thoughts.

“Nowadays I’m really not concerned about COVID,” says Guylherme Reis.

Health professionals are yet to be concerned either.

They are, however, keeping their eyes on a variant of Omicron called EG.5 that is spreading globally.

“EG.5 is something we should take note of and we should keep measuring some people out there, if you get sick, do get tested,” says infectious disease specialist, Dr. Lisa Barrett.

EG.5 is the dominant strain in the U.S.

Symptoms are similar to COVID-19, fever, headache, chills, body aches, and loss of smell or taste.

The strategy for dealing with this strain is a familiar one.

“This is also going to overlap with influenza mid fall. So to be clear, yet again, we’re going to have to make use of all of our testing resources so you know if this is COVID or if it’s flu,” Dr. Barrett says.

As for its anticipated impact on Canada, experts don’t believe we need to expect anything new.

”I don’t think people will notice anything different compared to more recent waves that we’ve seen since the spring of 2022,” says Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist.

That’s how some people are approaching it.

“Populations have to evolve, civilizations have to evolve, species have to evolve, so we have to evolve past this eventually,” says Halifax resident, Donna Larmour. “I work at home, I’m not exposed to many people and I mean, we have to move on.”

“From now to the end of the days we will need to continue living with COVID as a flu. They have many mutations and for sure, we believe in science so if we need to take another vaccine to prevent a new variant of COVID, for sure we will take the vaccine,” adds Reis.

Canada’s Public Health Agency says The EG.5 sub variant arrived in Canada in May.

Nova Scotia Health has not yet released its fall vaccination strategy.

The presence of the new EG.5 variant remains low here in Nova Scotia.

From June 20 to July 13, 13 cases have been identified.

For more Nova Scotia news visit our dedicated provincial page.