University of Saskatchewan virologist Angela Rasmussen says COVID-19 vaccines protect against severe illness and also decrease the chances of contracting the virus. She says that because there's still a lot of immunity, EG.5 is not suspected to be more severe than other subvariants. Caroline Colijn, a mathematician and epidemiologist at Simon Fraser University, told CBC News in an email that EG.5's mutations likely make it more infectious than the previous Omicron XBB subvariants.Ĭolijn, a member of an interdisciplinary team of researchers called the Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network (CoVaRR-Net), suspects that there could be a rise in EG.5 in the fall, but she doesn't anticipate a "huge fall wave." "They are all essentially Omicron - you can think of it as like a family and they're the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren in this family," she said.ĭr. "However, due to its growth advantage and immune escape characteristics, EG.5 may cause a rise in case incidence and become dominant in some countries or even globally," the WHO noted.ĮG.5, is a subvariant of Omicron - which remains the most common version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Canada.Īngela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, says Omicron is like the "great grandparents" of all the subvariants that have followed. In recent weeks, the United States has also seen a jump in cases and hospitalizations. The WHO said Japan and the Republic of Korea have observed EG.5 cases and hospitalization metrics both rising, though "no associations" have been made yet between the subvariant and hospitalization rates. In Ontario, for example, data shows that testing positivity has increased from about five per cent to nearly seven per cent within one month. Some parts of Canada are seeing a slight increase in COVID-19 cases, according to recent data.Įarlier this summer, most of the country's wastewater had some of the lowest levels of COVID-19 since analysis began in 2020.īut as of July 27, at least seven of the 39 sites tracked by Canada's COVID-19 wastewater surveillance dashboard have reported an increase. While EG.5 is spiking in multiple countries, it's unclear where it's driving an uptick in cases as well. Updated COVID-19 vaccines recommended for fall boosters, Canada's vaccine advisers say.5, according to an email shared with CBC News. The subvariant and its offshoots are predicted to have made up 36 per cent of cases in Canada between July 30 and Aug. Syra Madad, an epidemiologist at the Harvard Belfer Center.ĮG.5 has been circulating in Canada since at least May, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). "It's something to certainly keep a close eye on, but I'm not significantly worried about it at this point," said Dr.
While experts say EG.5 appears to be more infectious and able to sneak past our immune defences, there's also not much evidence to suggest that it causes more severe illness. In a new risk evaluation released on Wednesday, the WHO bumped up EG.5 from a variant under monitoring to the second-highest ranking, putting it alongside XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.6, which are also members of the Omicron family tree. A rapidly rising Omicron subvariant called EG.5 - which is circulating in Canada and multiple other countries - has now been designated a variant of interest by the World Health Organization (WHO).
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