What we know so far about new COVID-19 subvariant HV.1

All right a new covid-19 subvariant called hv1 is gaining traction here in Canada and health experts urge the public to get their vaccines while they determine if this is more contagious than past variants I want to bring in CTV News National correspondent Camille carali with more on this Camille good morning

To you so what are we learning about this variant yeah good morning Marcia so the big question right now among health expert is experts rather is how can contagious is this new subvariant we know that it is a subvariant of the Omron strain and it has seen significant

Growth uh across Canada in the past few months I mean back in August it was about 2 to 3% of all covid-19 cases in that time by late October it has now jumped up to 34% of all covid-19 cases according to health Canada and we’re still waiting for November’s numbers but in Ontario

Public health says it’s expected to be about nearly half of all cases this month now symptoms include fatigue body aches fever cough running nose in more severe cases we’ve seen shortness of breath and longer term effects as similar to what we’ve seen as symptoms of the Omron variant and Marcia although

Hv1 is gaining traction Health experts also want to highlight that overall activity of covid-19 is still fairly low saying that quote it’s stable uh it’s seeing able to decreasing Trends so far this year okay so tell us more about what experts are saying around the vaccines Effectiveness against this new

Variant that’s right there is once again big questions around how contagious this sub variant is but when it comes to the vaccine well they’re saying that seeing that it is a subvariant of Omron that the vaccine still should be effective have a listen to what one health expert

Had to say it’s a great way to turn what could be a major illness into just a few days of cold symptoms and that’s what you’re getting with that um it’s not leveling off like we expected like the percentage of coid out there in the swabs that we take is not stopping like

We hoped it would so it’s always going to be a factor in the background and if you get the vaccine you also lower your risk of getting long-term symptoms like long Co because um that is a huge factor for young and healthy people that you should consider so the message once

Again Marcia is to go get vaccinated as for what sort of numbers we can expect this upcoming winter when we usually see a rise in coid 19 cases uh experts say we’re not going to see anywhere close to the numbers we saw in 2020 and 2021 but

Look more just about a year ago in the winter of 2022 uh we’ll see similar numbers to that back over to you camil thanks so much you’re welcome appreciate it

A look at what we know so far about COVID subvariant HV.1 and whether it’s more contagious than previous Omicron strains.

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