A Covid-19 variant has returned with a vengeance. The BA.3.2 version, nicknamed Cicada, has now been found in over 20 states. The virus is highly mutated, making it difficult for vaccines to recognize. Though similar to other viruses, this strain has the potential to become more prevalent.
How dangerous is the variant?
The Cicada variant earned its name because, like the insect, it “first appeared back in 2024, went dormant for a while and resurfaced in the U.S. late last year,” said Northeastern Global News. BA.3.2 descended from the omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus, which made its debut in 2021.
Compared to current circulating strains of Covid-19, “BA.3.2 carries 70 to 75 genetic changes in its spike protein, the part of the virus that helps it get into cells,” Kyle B. Enfield, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Virginia, said at The Conversation. The spike protein is the “part of the virus that vaccines rely on to coax people’s immune systems into recognizing the virus.”
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The strain is making its rounds in the U.S. and can cause similar symptoms to other Covid strains as well as other respiratory viruses, including runny or stuffy nose, fever, chills, sore throat, cough and sometimes nausea and vomiting. These similarities make it difficult to determine whether you have Covid-19 or another illness. We cannot predict “what someone has based on what is circulating,” Geeta Sood, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, said to NBC News. “It could be Covid, it could be influenza, and now we have added the prolonged RSV to the mix.”
While the Cicada variant is passing through the population, there hasn’t been any “data which indicates that Cicada is any more severe than other circulating variants,” Robert H. Hopkins Jr., the medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, said to USA Today. In addition, Cicada is “currently a minority strain, based on the most recent data.” However, “we don’t know how quickly it will circulate or whether it will outrun the other variants that are out there at the moment, because we don’t know how contagious it is,” William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said to Politifact.
What precautions can you take?
The current vaccines for Covid-19 are “made to protect against strains from the JN.1 lineage of the virus, which have been the most common strains in the U.S. since January 2024,” said Enfield. BA.3.2 doesn’t fit the bill and is “almost a complete stranger” to those in the U.S.
“There definitely are quite a few mutations with this one, so there’s concern that the current vaccine is not going to be a great match,” said Brandon Dionne, an associate clinical professor of pharmacy and health systems sciences at Northeastern University, to Northeastern Global News. Despite this, experts still recommend getting the vaccine, as doing so can reduce the chance of hospitalization and death from the virus. A “poorly matched vaccine simply won’t recognize the new variant as quickly, which means it takes longer for the immune system to mount its defense,” Enfield said.
Along with getting vaccinated, the best thing to do is “when sick, get tested,” said Rajendram Rajnarayanan, the assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University, to USA Today. “If positive, stay home until better and confirm with a negative test. If that’s not possible, wear a fit N95 mask.”
